11 


H^H^BflRHR 

|W||lSttll!ll!>;'"::'': 


ALVMNW  BOOK  FVND 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 

AND  OTHER  BILLY  BROWN   STORIES 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON  •   CHICAGO  •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Lra. 

TORONTO 


HE   KNEW   LINCOLN 

AND  OTHER  BILLY  BROWN  STORIES 

BY 
IDA  M.  TARBELL 

AUTHOR  OF  "LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN!: 


fork 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1922 

All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


Copyright,  1907 
By  McCLURE,  PHILLIPS  &  COMPANY 

Copyright,  1907,  1908  and  1909 
By  THE  PHILLIPS  PUBLISHING   COMPANY 

Copyright,  1909 

'    3y  MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 
New  York 

Copyright,  1920 
By  AMERICAN   NATIONAL  RED  CROSS 

New  York 

Copyright,  1920  and  1922 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


FERRIS 

PRINTING  COMPANY 
NEW    YORK   CITY 


TO  MY  SISTER 


4S473-1 


INTRODUCTION 

More  than  one  clue  must  be  unrav 
elled  to  reach  an  understanding  of  Abra 
ham  Lincoln.  Among  them  there  surely 
must  be  reckoned  his  capacity  for  com 
panionship.  None  more  catholic  in  his 
selections  ever  lived.  All  men  were  his 
fellows.  He  went  unerringly  and  uncon 
sciously  for  the  most  part,  to  the  meeting 
place  that  awaited  him  in  each  man's  na 
ture.  There  might  be  a  wall,  often  there 
was;  but  he  knew,  no  one  better,  that 
there  is  always  a  secret  door  in  human 
walls.  Sooner  or  later  he  discovered  it, 
put  his  finger  on  its  spring,  passed 
through  and  settled  into  the  place  behind 
that  was  his. 

His  life  was  rich  in  companionships 
Vlt 


INTRODUCTION 

with  unlikely  people,  often  people  who 
began  by  contempt  or  semi-contempt  of 
him.  There  was  the  town  bully  of  his 
youth,  whom  he  soundly  thrashed  for  try 
ing  a  foul  in  a  wrest1  ing  match,  and  who 
rose  from  the  dust  to  proclaim  Lincoln 
the  best  man  who  ever  broke  into  camp; 
thirty  years  later  there  was  his  own  Sec 
retary  of  State,  Math  his  self-complacent 
assumption  of  the  President's  unfitness 
for  leadership  and  of  his  own  call  to  di 
rect  the  nation,  put  gently  but  firmly  in 
his  place  and  soon  frankly  and  nobly  de 
claring,  "He's  the  best  of  us  all." 

He  had  many  pass-keys — wrath,  mag 
nanimity,  shrewdness,  patience,  clarity 
of  judgment,  humor,  resolve;  and  in  the 
end,  one  or  the  other  or  all  together 
opened  every  closed  door,  and  he  sat 
down  at  home  with  men  of  the  most  di 
vergent  view  and  experience:  the  bully, 
the  scholarly,  the  cunning,  the  pious,  the 
VIII 


INTRODUCTION 

ambitious,  the  selfish,  the  great,  the  weak, 
the  boy,  the  man. 

Particularly  was  Lincoln  at  home  with 
men  like  the  Billy  Brown  of  these  pages, 
men  whose  native  grain  had  not  been 
obscured  by  polish  and  oil.  There  were 
many  of  them  in  his  time  in  Illinois,  ply 
ing  their  trades  or  professions  more  or  less 
busily,  but  never  allowing  industry  to  in 
terfere  with  opportunities  for  compan 
ionship.  They  were  men  of  shrewdness, 
humor,  usually  modest,  not  over-weight 
ed  with  ambition.  Their  appetite  for  talk, 
for  politics,  for  reports  on  human  exhib 
its  of  all  sorts,  never  dulled.  Their  love 
of  companionship  outstripped  even  their 
naturally  intolerant  partisanship. 

These  men,  unconsciously  for  the  most 
part,  resisted  the  social  veneering  that, 
beginning  in  Illinois  in  Lincoln's  day, 
rapidly  overlaid  the  state.  In  his  first 
contact  with  Springfield  in  the  '30's  he 
IX 


INTRODUCTION 

remarked  the  "flourishing  about  in  car 
riages,"  the  separation  of  people  into 
groups  according  to  money,  antecedents, 
social  Etiquette.  He  never  allowed  con 
vention,  address,  ceremony,  however  for 
eign  to  him,  to  interfere  with  his  human 
relations — he  went  over  or  around  them. 
But,  natural  man  that  he  was,  he  found 
a  special  freedom  with  those  in  whom  the 
essence  of  human  nature  remained  un 
mixed  and  uncorked. 

The  original  of  Billy  Brown  was  such 
a  man,  He  was  still  keeping  his  drug 
store  in  Springfield  in  the  '90's  when  the 
writer  made  studies  there  for  a  "Life  of 
Lincoln."  She  passed  many  an  hour  in 
Lincoln's  chair,  while  Billy,  tipped  back 
in  something  less  precious,  talked.  There 
were  Billy  Browns  in  other  towns — 
Bloomington,  Princeton,  Quincy,  Chi 
cago.  Their  memory  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
among  the  most  precious  and  satisfying 
X 


INTRODUCTION 

things  in  their  lives.  When  business  was 
dull  or  the  day  rainy  and  consequently 
there  were  few  or  no  interruptions,  the 
talk  you  started  by  questions  soon  be 
came  a  soliloqey.  Head  against  the  wall, 
feet  on  desk,  eyes  far  away,  voice  soft 
ened,  they  re-lived  the  old  friendship. 
Their  memories  were  tender,  reverent 
but  singularly  devoid  of  the  thing  that 
we  call  hero-worship.  Mr.  Lincoln  re 
mained  too  real  to  them,  too  interesting 
and  companionable. 

The  sense  of  intimacy  with  him  which 
they  treasured,  their  conviction  that  he 
recognized  them  as  his  friends,  had  little 
or  no  trace  of  familiarity.  He  was  always 
"Mr.  Lincoln"  to  them,  never  "Abe,"  nor 
would  they  tolerate  the  use  of  that  word. 
I  never  saw  my  Springfield  Billy  Brown 
so  angrily  indignant  as  in  talking  of  a 
townsman  who  affected  the  name.  True, 
he  and  Billy  were  rivals  in  reminiscence, 
XI 


INTRODUCTION 

but  that  was  not  the  basis  of  his  resent 
ment.  "He  never  called  Mr.  Lincoln  that 
to  his  face"  was  Billy's  complaint.  That 
is,  the  use  of  the  name  gave  a  false  color 
to  the  recollections  and  only  truth  was 
tolerable  where  Mr.  Lincoln  was  con 
cerned. 

If  Mr.  Lincoln's  fellowship  with  the 
Billy  Browns  of  Illinois  was  based  on  his 
love  of  sheer  human  nature,  he  found  in 
them,  too,  something  very  precious  to 
him,  and  that  was  a  humor  that  answered 
his  own.  The  spring  from  which  his  hu 
mor  flowed  was  strong  with  native  salts 
and  so  was  theirs.  It  was  naked  but  clean, 
devoid  of  evil  insinuation.  It  was  always 
out  -  with  -  it  —  strong,  pungent  words ; 
strong,  pungent  facts.  The  humor  was 
not  in  words  or  facts,  it  was  in  what  they 
pointed — the  illumination  they  gave  of 
life  and  men.  Lincoln's  humor  was  part 
of  his  passion  for  reality,  truthfulness, 
XII 


INTRODUCTION 

freedom.  The  Billy  Browns  answered 
him  and  gave  him  more  of  a  particular 
kind  of  salt  he  craved,  in  a  life  in  many 
ways  starved,  starved  for  love  and  hope 
and  gaiety,  for  all  of  which  he  had  great 
natural  capacity. 

The  youthfulness  of  their  spirit  en 
deared  them  to  him.  They  were  usually 
some  fifteen  or  twenty  years  his  junior; 
but  in  feeling  the  difference  was  greater. 
Lincoln  early  looked  on  himself  and 
spoke  of  himself  as  an  old  man.  It  was 
not  years — Jt  was  burdens,  defeats,  the 
failure  to  find  a  satisfying  purpose  in 
life.  He  was  old,  and  he  craved  youth. 
These  men  had  it.  They  were  perennial 
children.  Youth  seemed  to  warm  him,  and 
he  sought  it  wherever  it  was  to  be  found 
— in  children,  boys,  young  men.  They  in 
turn  instinctively  came  to  him.  A  succes 
sion  of  youth  in  all  its  forms  follows  him 
through  his  goings  and  comings  in  the 
XIII 


INTRODUCTION 
streets  of  Springfield,  along  the  route 
of  the   old  Eighth   Circuit   of  Illinois, 
through  the  streets  of  Washington,  into 
the  White  House. 

His  own  children  stirred  the  deepest 
passion  his  unsatisfied  heart  ever  knew. 
Tad,  whose  stuttering  tongue  and  rest 
less,  valiant  spirit  brought  out  all  Mr. 
Lincoln's  tenderness,  sat  beside  him 
every  free  evening,  going  over  the  pic 
tures  and  text  of  the  shoals  of  books 
which- publishers  send  to  a  President;  he 
helping  the  boy's  stumbling  tongue  to 
frame  his  comments — a  perfection  of  fel 
lowship  between  them.  When  the  nights 
were  not  free — and  that  was  often,  for 
there  were  long  conferences  running  into 
the  small  hours,  the  lad  slept  beside  him 
on  the  floor  of  the  conference  room.  And 
when  it  was  over,  he  gathered  him  up 
in  his  arms  and  himself  put  him  to  bed, 
consoled  in  the  harrowing  muddle 
XIV 


INTRODUCTION 

of  affairs  by  the  perfect  love  between 
them. 

One  can  never  be  too  thankful  that  he 
had  John  Hay,  then  a  youth  in  his  early 
twenties — and  such  a  youth!  The  joy  and 
fun  and  understanding  between  them  as 
it  crops  out  in  Hay's  letters  is  a  streak  of 
pure  sunshine  across  the  almost  soddenly 
tragic  life  of  the  White  House  in  the 
Civil  War. 

This  capacity  for  companionship 
which  so  linked  men  of  all  types  to  Lin 
coln  in  his  lifetime  and  so  held  them  to 
him  in  death  is  one  clue  to  his  final  suc 
cess  in  bringing  out  of  the  struggle  over 
slavery  in  this  country  certain  solid  and 
definite  results — results  that  have  en 
larged  the  boundaries  of  human  free 
dom  and  given  a  convincing  demon 
stration  of  the  need  and  the  preciousness 
of  more  and  more  unionism  if  we  are  to 
secure  our  final  better  world.  He  could 
XV 


INTRODUCTION 

not  have  done  what  he  did  had  he  been 
less  understanding  of  men  and  their  lim 
itations  as  well  as  of  their  powers,  less 
experienced  in  passing  behind  human 
walls,  finding  what  there  was  there  and 
using  it,  not  asking  of  a  man  what  he 
could  not  give,  not  forcing  on  him  what 
he  could  not  receive. 

Who  can  estimate  what  ft  was  to  the 
nation  to  have  as  a  leader  through  the 
Civil  War  a  man  "born  with  a  pass-key 
to  hearts." 

IDA  M.  TARBELL. 


XVI 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

He  Knew  Lincoln  ....          3 
Back  in  '58  .  .  .  .        43 

Father  Abraham     .  •  .  .87 

In  Lincoln's  Chair  .  .  .127 


XVII 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing 
page 

"Come  and  set  by  the  stove  by  the  hour  and 

tell  stories  and  talk  and  argue  "...       4 

"Horace   Greeley,  he   came  in  here  to  buy 

quinine " 16 

"Aunt  Sally,  you  couldn't  a  done  nuthin9 

which  would  have  pleased  me  better  "        18 

"He  just  talked  to  us  that  time  out  of  his 

heart" .24 

"You're  actin9  like  a  lot  of  cowards. 
You've  helped  make  this  war9  and 
you've  got  to  help  fight  it"  .  .  .  .  26 

"We  went  out  on  the  back  stoop  and  sat  down 

and  talked  and  talked "  .     .     .     »    30 


XIX 


HE    KNEW  LINCOLN 


He  has  the  pass-key  to  hearts,  to  him  the 

response  of  the  prying  of  hands  on  the  knobs." 

— Walt  Whitman  s  "Song  of  the  Answerer" 


6 '  TT^V  ID  I  know  Lincoln  ?  Well, 
•  I  should  say.  See  that 
^  J  chair  there  ?  Take  it,  set 
down.  That's  right.  Comfortable, 
ain't  it  ?  Well,  sir,  Abraham  Lincoln 
has  set  in  that  chair  hours,  him  and 
Little  'Doug,'  and  Logan  and  Judge 
Davis,  all  of  'em,  all  the  big  men  in  this 
State,  set  in  that  chair.  See  them  marks  ? 
Whittlin'.  Judge  Logan  did  it,  all-firedest 
man  to  whittle.  Always  cuttin'  away  at 
something.  I  just  got  that  chair  new,  paid 
six  dollars  for  it,  and  I  be  blamed  if  I 
didn't  come  in  this  store  and  find  him 
slashin'  right  into  that  arm.  I  picked  up 
a  stick  and  said:  'Here,  Judge,  s'posin' 
you  cut  this.'  He  just  looked  at  me  and 
3 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
then  flounced  out,  mad  as  a  wet  hen. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  here,  and  you  ought  to 
heard  him  tee-hee.  He  was  always  here. 
Come  and  set  by  the  stove  by  the  hour 
and  tell  stories  and  talk  and  argue.  I'd 
ruther  heard  the  debates  them  men  had 
around  this  old  stove  than  heard  Webster 
and  Clay  and  Calhoun  and  the  whole 
United  States  Senate.  There  wa'n't  never 
a  United  States  Senate  that  could  beat 
just  what  I've  heard  right  here  in  this 
room  with  Lincoln  settin'  in  that  very 
chair  where  you  are  this  minute. 

"  He  traded  here.  I've  got  his  accounts 
now.  See  here, 'quinine,  quinine,  quinine.' 
Greatest  hand  to  buy  quinine  you  ever 
see.  Give  it  to  his  constituents.  Oh,  he 
knew  how  to  be  popular,  Mr.  Lincoln  did. 
Cutest  man  in  politics.  I  wa'n't  a  Whig. 
I  was  then  and  I  am  now  a  Democrat,  a 
real  old-fashioned  Jackson  Democrat,  and 
4 


"  Come  and  set  by  the  stove  by  the  hour  and  tell  stories  and 
talk  and  argue  " 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
my  blood  just  would  rise  up  sometimes 
hearin'  him  discuss.  He  was  a  dangerous 
man  —  a  durned  dangerous  man  to  have 
agin  you.  He'd  make  you  think  a  thing 
when  you  knew  it  wa'n't  so,  and  cute! 
Why,  he'd  just  slide  in  when  you  wa'n't 
expectin'  it  and  do  some  unexpected 
thing  that  u'd  make  you  laugh,  and 
then  he'd  get  your  vote.  You'd  vote  for 
him  because  you  liked  him  —  just  be 
cause  you  liked  him  and  because  he  was 
so  all-fired  smart,  and  do  it  when  you 
knew  he  was  wrong  and  it  was  agin  the 
interest  of  the  country. 

"  Tell  stories  ?  Nobody  ever  could  beat 
him  at  that,  and  how  he'd  enjoy  'em,  just 
slap  his  hands  on  his  knees  and  jump  up 
and  turn  around  and  then  set  down, 
laughin'  to  kill.  Greatest  man  to  git  new 
yarns  that  ever  lived,  always  askin', 
'Heard  any  new  stories,  Billy?'  And  if 
5 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
I  had  I'd  trot  'em  out,  and  how  he'd 
laugh.  Often  and  often  when  I've  told 
him  something  new  and  he'd  kin'  a  f  orgit 
how  it  went,  he'd  come  in  and  say,  *  Billy, 
how  about  that  story  you'se  tellin'  me?' 
and  then  I'd  tell  it  all  over. 

"  He  was  away  a  lot,  you  know,  ridin' 
the  circuit  along  with  some  right  smart 
lawyers.  They  had  great  doin's.  Nuthin' 
to  do  evenings  but  to  set  around  the 
tavern  stove  tellin'  stories.  That  was 
enough  when  Lincoln  was  there.  They 
was  all  lost  without  him.  Old  Judge  Davis 
was  boss  of  that  lot,  and  he  never  would 
settle  down  till  Lincoln  got  around.  I've 
heard  'em  laugh  lots  of  times  how  the 
Judge  would  fuss  around  and  keep  askin', 
'Where's  Mr.  Lincoln,  why  don't  Mr. 
Lincoln  come  ?  Somebody  go  and  find 
Lincoln,'  and  when  Lincoln  came  he 
would  just  settle  back  and  get  him  started 
6 


HE    KNEW    LINCOLN 
to  yarning,  and  there  they'd  set  half  the 
night. 

"  When  he  got  home  he'd  come  right  in 
here  first  time  he  was  downtown  and  tell 
me  every  blamed  yarn  he'd  heard.  Whole 
crowd  would  get  in  here  sometimes  and 
talk  over  the  trip,  and  I  tell  you  it  was 
something  to  hear  'em  laugh.  You  could 
tell  how  Lincoln  kept  things  stirred  up. 
He  was  so  blamed  quick.  Ever  hear  Judge 
Weldon  tell  that  story  about  what  Lin 
coln  said  one  day  up  to  Bloomington 
when  they  was  takin'  up  a  subscription 
to  buy  Jim  Wheeler  a  new  pair  of  pants  ? 
No  ?  Well,  perhaps  I  oughten  to  tell  it  to 
you,  ma  says  it  ain't  nice.  It  makes  me 
mad  to  hear  people  objectin'  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  stories.  Mebbe  he  did  say 
words  you  wouldn't  expect  to  hear  at  a 
church  supper,  but  he  never  put  no  mean- 
in'  into  'em  that  wouldn't  'a'  been  fit  for 
7 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
the  minister  to  put  into  a  sermon,  and 
that's  a  blamed  sight  more'n  you  can  say 
of  a  lot  of  stories  I've  heard  some  of  the 
people  tell  who  stick  up  their  noses  at 
Mr.  Lincoln's  yarns. 

"Yes,  sir,  he  used  to  keep  things  purty 
well  stirred  up  on  that  circuit.  That  time 
I  was  a  speakin'  of  he  made  Judge  Davis 
real  mad;  it  happened  right  in  court  and 
everybody  got  to  gigglin'  fit  to  kill.  The 
Judge  knew  'twas  something  Linccln 
had  said  and  he  began  to  sputter. 

"I  am  not  going  to  stand  this  any 

longer,  Mr.  Lincoln,  you're  always  dis- 

turbin'  this  court  with  your  tomfoolery. 

I'm  goin*  to  fine  you.  The  clerk  will  fine 

Mr.  Lincoln  five  dollars  for  disorderly 

conduct.'  The  boys  said  Lincoln  never 

.  said  a  word ;  he  just  set  lookin'  down  with 

his  hand  over  his  mouth,  tryin'  not  to 

laugh.  About  a  minute  later  the  Judge, 

8 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
who  was  always  on  pins  and  needles  till 
lie  knew  all  the  fun  that  was  goin'  on, 
called  up  Weldon  and  whispered  to  him, 
*  What  was  that  Lincoln  said  ? '  Weldon 
told  him,  and  I'll  be  blamed  if  the  Judge 
didn't  giggle  right  out  loud  there  in  court. 
The  joke  was  on  him  then,  and  he  knew 
it,  and  soon  as  he  got  his  face  straight  he 
said,  dignified  like,  *  The  clerk  may  remit 
Mr.  Lincoln's  fine.' 

"  Yes,  he  was  a  mighty  cute  story-teller, 
but  he  knew  what  he  was  about  tellin' 
'em.  I  tell  you  he  got  more  arguments  out 
of  stories  than  he  did  out  of  law  books, 
and  the  queer  part  was  you  couldn't 
answer  'em  —  they  just  made  you  see  it 
and  you  couldn't  get  around  it.  I'm  a 
Democrat,  but  I'll  be  blamed  if  I  didn't 
have  to  vote  for  Mr.  Lincoln  as  President, 
couldn't  help  it,  and  it  was  all  on  account 
of  that  snake  story  of  his'n  illustratin' 
9 


HE    KNEW    LINCOLN 
the  takin'  of  slavery  into  Kansas  and  Ne 
braska.  Remember  it  ?  I  heard  him  tell 
it  in  a  speech  once. 

"'If  I  saw  a  pizen  snake  crawlin'  in 
the  road/  he  says,  'I'd  kill  it  with  the 
first  thing  I  could  grab;  but  if  I  found  it 
in  bed  with  my  children,  I'd  be  mighty 
careful  how  I  touched  it  fear  I'd  make  it 
bite  the  children.  If  I  found  it  in  bed  with 
somebody  else's  children  I'd  let  them 
take  care  of  it;  but  if  I  found  somebody 
puttin'  a  whole  batch  of  young  snakes 
into  an  empty  bed  where  mine  or  any 
body's  children  was  going  to  sleep  pretty 
soon,  I'd  stop  him  from  doin'  it  if  I  had 
to  fight  him.'  Perhaps  he  didn't  say '  fight 
him,'  but  somehow  I  always  tell  that 
story  that  way  because  I  know  I  would 
and  so  would  he  or  you  or  anybody.  That 
was  what  it  was  all  about  when  you  come 
down  to  it.  They  was  tryin'  to  put  a  batch 
10 


HE   KNEW   LINCOLN 
of  snakes  into  an  empty  bed  that  folks 
was  goin'  to  sleep  in. 

"Before  I  heard  that  story  I'd  heard 
Lincoln  say  a  hundred  times,  settin'  right 
there  in  that  chair,  where  you  are,  *  Boys, 
we've  got  to  stop  slavery  or  it's  goin'  to 
spread  all  over  this  country/  but,  some 
how,  I  didn't  see  it  before.  Them  snakes 
finished  me.  Then  I  knew  he'd  got  it  right 
and  I'd  got  to  vote  for  him.  Pretty  tough, 
though,  for  me  to  go  back  on  Little 
'Doug.'  You  see  he  was  our  great  man, 
so  we  thought.  Been  to  the  United  States 
Senate  and  knew  all  the  big  bugs  all  over 
the  country.  Sort  o'  looked  and  talked 
great.  Wan't  no  comparison  between  him 
and  Lincoln  in  looks  and  talk.  Of  course, 
we  all  knew  he  wa'n't  honest,  like  Lincoln, 
but  blamed  if  I  didn't  think  in  them  days 
Lincoln  was  too  all-fired  honest  —  kind 
of  innocent  honest.  He  couldn't  stand  it 
11 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
nohow  to  have  things  said  that  wan't  so. 
He  just  felt  plumb  bad  about  lies.  I  re 
member  once  bein'  in  court  over  to  De- 
catur  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  tryin'  a  case. 
There  was  a  fellow  agin  him  that  didn't 
have  no  prejudices  against  lyin'  in  a  law 
suit,  and  he  was  tellin'  how  Lincoln  had 
said  this  an'  that,  tryin'  to  mix  up  the 
jury.  It  was  snowin'  bad  outside,  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  wet  his  feet  and  he  was  tryin' 
to  dry  'em  at  the  stove.  He  had  pulled  off 
one  shoe  and  was  settin*  there  holdin'  up 
his  great  big  foot,  his  forehead  all  puck 
ered  up,  listenin'  to  that  ornery  lawyer's 
lies.  All  at  onct  he  jumped  up  and  hopped 
right  out  into  the  middle  of  the  court 
room. 

: '  Now,  Judge,'  he  says,  '  that  ain't 
fair.   I  didn't  say  no  sich  thing,  and  he 
knows  I  didn't.  I  ain't  goin'  to  have  this 
jury  all  fuddled  up.' 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
'You  never  see  anything  so  funny  in  a 
court-room  as  that  big  fellow  standin* 
there  in  one  stockin'  foot,  a  shoe  in  his 
hand,  talking  so  earnest.  No,  sir,  he 
couldn't  stand  a  lie. 

'Think  he  was  a  big  man,  then?' 
Nope  —  never  did.  Just  as  I  said,  we  all 
thought  Douglas  was  our  big  man.  You 
know  I  felt  kind  of  sorry  for  Lincoln 
when  they  began  to  talk  about  him  for 
President.  It  seemed  almost  as  if  some 
body  was  makin'  fun  of  him.  He  didn't 
look  like  a  president.  I  never  had  seen 
one,  but  we  had  pictures  of  'em,  all  of 
'em  from  George  Washington  down,  and 
they  looked  somehow  as  if  they  were  dif 
ferent  kind  of  timber  from  us.  Leastwise 
that's  always  the  way  it  struck  me.  Now 
Mr.  Lincoln  he  was  just  like  your  own 
folks  —  no  trouble  to  talk  to  him,  no 
siree.  Somehow  you  just  settled  down 
IS 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
comfortable  to  visitin'  the  minute  he  come 
in.  I  couldn't  imagine  George  Washing 
ton  or  Thomas  Jefferson  settin'  here  in 
that  chair  you're  in  tee-heein'  over  some 
blamed  yarn  of  mine.  None  of  us  around 
town  took  much  stock  in  his  bein'  elected 
at  first  —  that  is,  none  of  the  men,  the 
women  was  different.  They  always  be 
lieved  in  him,  and  used  to  say,  *  You  mark 
my  word,  Mr.  Lincoln  will  be  president. 
He's  just  made  for  it,  he's  good,  he's  the 
best  man  ever  lived  and  he  ought  to  be 
president.'  I  didn't  see  no  logic  in  that 
then,  but  I  dunno  but  there  was  some 
after  all. 

"  It  seems  all  right  now  though.  I  reck 
on  I  learned  somethin'  watchin'  him  be 
President  —  learned  a  lot  —  not  that  it 
made  any  difference  in  him.  Funniest 
thing  to  see  him  goin'  around  in  this 
town  —  not  a  mite  changed  —  and  the 
14 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
whole  United  States  a  watchin'  him  and 
the  biggest  men  in  the  country  runnin' 
after  him  and  reporters  hangin'  around 
to  talk  to  him  and  fellers  makin'  his  pic 
tures  in  ile  and  every  other  way.  That 
didn't  make  no  difference  to  him  —  only 
he  didn't  like  bein'  so  busy  he  couldn't 
come  in  here  much.  He  had  a  room  over 
there  in  the  Court  House  —  room  on  that 
corner  there.  I  never  looked  up  that  it 
wa'n't  chuck  full  of  people  wantin5  him. 
This  old  town  was  full  of  people  all  the 
time  —  delegations  and  committees  and 
politicians  and  newspaper  men.  Only 
time  I  ever  see  Horace  Greeley,  he  came 
in  here  to  buy  quinine.  Mr.  Lincoln  sent 
him.  Think  of  that,  Horace  Greeley  buy- 
in'  quinine  of  me. 

"No  end  of  other  great  men  around. 
He  saw  'em  all.  Sometimes  I  used  to  step 
over  and  watch  him  —  didn't  bother  him 
15 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
a  mite  to  see  a  big  man  —  not  a  mite. 
He'd  jest  shake  hands  and  talk  as  easy 
and  natural  as  if  'twas  me  —  and  he 
didn't  do  no  struttin'  either.  Some  of  the 
fellers  who  come  to  see  him  looked  as  if 
they  was  goin'  to  be  president,  but  Mr. 
Lincoln  didn't  put  on  any  airs.  No,  sir, 
and  he  didn't  cut  any  of  his  old  friends 
either.  Tickled  to  death  to  see  'em  every 
time,  and  they  all  come  —  blamed  if 
every  old  man  and  woman  in  Sangamon 
County  didn't  trot  up  here  to  see  him. 
They'd  all  knowed  him  when  he  was 
keepin'  store  down  to  New  Salem  and 
swingin'  a  chain  —  surveyed  lots  of  their 
towns  for  'em  —  he  had  —  and  then  he'd 
electioneered  all  over  that  county,  too, 
so  they  just  come  in  droves  to  bid  him 
good-by.  I  was  over  there  one  day  when 
old  Aunt  Sally  Lowdy  came  in  the  door. 
Aunt  Sally  lived  down  near  New  Salem, 
16 


"Horace  GreeJey,  he  came  in  here  to  buy  quinine 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
and  I  expect  she'd  mended  Mr.  Lincoln's 
pants  many  a  time;  for  all  them  old  wo 
men  down  there  just  doted  on  him  and 
took  care  of  him  as  if  he  was  their  own 
boy.  Well,  Aunt  Sally  stood  lookin'  kind 
a  scared  seein'  so  many  strangers  and  not 
knowin'  precisely  what  to  do,  when  Mr. 
Lincoln  spied  her.  Quick  as  a  wink  he 
said,  'Excuse  me,  gentlemen,'  and  he 
just  rushed  over  to  that  old  woman  and 
shook  hands  with  both  of  his'n  and  says, 
'  Now,  Aunt  Sally,  this  is  real  kind  of  you 
to  come  and  see  me.  How  are  you  and 
how's  Jake  ?'  (Jake  was  her  boy.)  '  Come 
right  over  here,'  and  he  led  her  over,  as  if 
she  was  the  biggest  lady  in  Illinois,  and 
says,  *  Gentlemen,  this  is  a  good  old  friend 
of  mine.  She  can  make  the  best  flapjacks 
you  ever  tasted,  and  she's  baked  'em  for 
me  many  a  time.'  Aunt  Sally  was  jest  as 
pink  as  a  rosy,  she  was  so  tickled.  And 
17 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
she  says,  'Abe' — all  the  old  folks  in 
Sangamon  called  him  Abe.  They  knowed 
him  as  a  boy,  but  don't  you  believe  any 
body  ever  did  up  here.  No,  sir,  we  said 
Mr.  Lincoln.  He  was  like  one  of  us,  but 
he  wa'n't  no  man  to  be  over  familiar  with. 
'Abe,'  says  Aunt  Sally,  *I  had  to  come 
and  say  good-by.  They  say  down  our  way 
they're  goin'  to  kill  you  if  they  get  you 
down  to  Washington,  but  I  don't  believe 
it.  I  just  tell  'em  you're  too  smart  to  let 
'em  git  ahead  of  you  that  way.  I  thought 
I'd  come  and  bring  you  a  present,  knit 
'em  myself,'  and  I'll  be  blamed  if  that  old 
lady  didn't  pull  out  a  great  big  pair  of 
yarn  socks  and  hand  'em  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 
"  Well,  sir,  it  was  the  funniest  thing  to 
see  Mr.  Lincoln's  face  pucker  up  and  his 
eyes  twinkle  and  twinkle.  He  took  them 
socks  and  held  'em  up  by  the  toes,  one  in 
each  hand.  They  was  the  longest  socks  I 
18 


"Aunt  Sully ,  you  couldn't  a  done  nuthiri   which  would 
have  pleased  me  better  " 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
ever  see.  'The  lady  got  my  latitude  and 
longitude  'bout  right,  didn't  she,  gentle 
men  ? '  he  says,  and  then  he  laid  'em 
down  and  he  took  Aunt  Sally's  hand  and 
he  says  tender-like,  'Aunt  Sally,  you 
couldn't  a  done  nothin'  which  would 
have  pleased  me  better.  I'll  take  'em  to 
Washington  and  wear  'em,  and  think 
of  you  when  I  do  it.'  And  I  declare  he 
said  it  so  first  thing  I  knew  I  was  al 
most  blubberin',  and  I  wan't  the  only 
one  nuther,  and  I  bet  he  did  wear  'em  in 
Washington.  I  can  jest  see  him  pullin' 
off  his  shoe  and  showin'  them  socks  to 
Sumner  or  Seward  or  some  other  big  bug 
that  was  botherin'  him  when  he  wanted 
to  switch  off  on  another  subject  and  tellin' 
'em  the  story  about  Aunt  Sally  and  her 
flapjacks. 

" '  Was  there  much  talk  about  his  bein' 
killed  ? '  Well,  there's  an  awful  lot  of  fools 
19 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
in  this  world  and  when  they  don't  git  what 
they  want  they're  always  for  killin'  some 
body.  Mr.  Lincoln  never  let  on,  but  I 
reckon  his  mail  was  pretty  lively  readin' 
sometimes.  He  got  pictures  of  gallows 
and  pistols  and  other  things  and  lots  of 
threats,  so  they  said.  I  don't  think  that 
worried  him  much.  He  was  more  bothered 
seein'  old  Buchanan  givin'  the  game 
away.  'I  wish  I  could  have  got  down 
there  before  the  horse  was  stole,'  I  heard 
him  say  onct  in  here,  talkin'  to  some  men. 
'But  I  reckon  I  can  find  the  tracks  when 
I  do  git  there.'  It  was  his  cabinet  bother 
ed  him  most,  I  always  thought.  He  didn't 
know  the  men  he'd  got  to  take  well 
enough.  Didn't  know  how  far  he  could 
count  on  'em.  He  and  Judge  Gillespie 
and  one  or  two  others  was  in  here  one 
day  sittin'  by  the  stove  talkin/  and  he 
says,  *  Judge,  I  wisht  I  could  take  all  you 
20 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
boys  down  to  Washington  with  me, 
Democrats  and  all,  and  make  a  cabinet 
out  of  you.  I'd  know  where  every  man 
would  fit  and  we  could  git  right  down  to 
work.  Now,  I've  got  to  learn  my  men 
before  I  can  do  much.'  'Do  you  mean, 
Mr.  Lincoln,  you'd  take  a  Democrat  like 
Logan  ? '  says  the  Judge,  sort  of  shocked. 
'Yes,  sir,  I  would;  I  know  Logan.  He's 
agin  me  now  and  that's  all  right,  but  if 
we  have  trouble  you  can  count  on  Logan 
to  do  the  right  thing  by  the  country, 
and  that's  the  kind  of  men  I  want  —  them 
as  will  do  the  right  thing  by  the  country. 
'Tain't  a  question  of  Lincoln,  or  Demo 
crat  or  Republican,  Judge;  it's  a  question 
of  the  country.' 

"Of  course  he  seemed  pretty  cheerful 

always.  He  wan't  no  man  to  show  out  all 

he  felt.  Lots  of  them  little  stuck-up  chaps 

that  came  out  here  to  talk  to  him  said, 

21 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
solemn  as  owls,  'He  don't  realize  the 
gravity  of  the  situation.'  Them's  their 
words,  'gravity  of  the  situation.'  Think  of 
that,  Mr.  Lincoln  not  realizing.  They 
ought  to  heard  him  talk  to  us  the  night  he 
went  away.  I'll  never  f orgit  that  speech  — 
nor  any  man  who  heard  it.  I  can  see  him 
now  just  how  he  looked,  standin'  there  on 
the  end  of  his  car.  He'd  been  shakin' 
hands  with  the  crowd  in  the  depot,  laugh- 
in'  and  talkin',  just  like  himself,  but  when 
he  got  onto  that  car  he  seemed  suddint 
to  be  all  changed.  You  never  seen  a  face 
so  sad  in  all  the  world.  I  tell  you  he  had 
woe  in  his  heart  that  minute,  woe.  He 
knew  he  was  leavin'  us  for  good,  nuthin' 
else  could  explain  the  way  he  looked  and 
what  he  said.  He  knew  he  never  was 
comin'  back  alive.  It  was  rainin'  hard, 
but  when  we  saw  him  standin'  there 
bare  headed,  his  great  big  eyes  lookin'  at 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
us  so  lovin'  and  mournful,  every  man  of 
us  took  off  his  hat,  just  as  If  he'd  been  in 
church.  You  never  heard  him  make  a 
speech,  of  course  ?  You  missed  a  lot. 
Curious  voice.  You  could  hear  it  away 
off  —  kind  of  shrill,  but  went  right  to 
your  heart  —  and  that  night  it  sounded 
sadder  than  anything  I  ever  heard.  You 
know  I  always  hear  it  to  this  day,  nights 
when  the  wind  howls  around  the  house. 
Ma  says  it  makes  her  nervous  to  hear  me 
talk  about  him  such  nights,  but  I  can't 
help  it;  just  have  to  let  out 

"  He  stood  a  minute  lookin'  at  us,  and 
then  he  began  to  talk.  There  ain't  a  man 
in  this  town  that  heard  him  that  ever  for 
got  what  he  said,  but  I  don't  believe 
there's  a  man  that  ever  said  it  over  out 
loud  —  he  couldn't,  without  cryin'.  He 
just  talked  to  us  that  time  out  of  his  heart. 
Somehow  we  felt  all  of  a  suddint  how  we 
23 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
loved  him  and  how  he  loved  us.  We 
hadn't  taken  any  stock  in  all  that  talk 
about  his  bein'  killed,  but  when  he  said 
he  was  goin'  away  not  knowin'  where  or 
whether  ever  he  would  return  I  just  got 
cold  all  over.  I  begun  to  see  that  minute 
and  everybody  did.  The  women  all  fell  to 
sobbin'  and  a  kind  of  groan  went  up,  and 
when  he  asked  us  to  pray  for  him  I  don't 
believe  that  there  was  a  man  in  that 
crowd,  whether  he  ever  went  to  church 
in  his  life,  that  didn't  want  to  drop  right 
down  on  his  marrow  bones  and  ask  the 
Lord  to  take  care  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  bring  him  back  to  us,  where  he  be 
longed. 

" '  Ever  see  him  again  ? '  Yes,  onct 
down  in  Washington,  summer  of  '64. 
Things  was  lookin'  purty  blue  that  sum 
mer.  Didn't  seem  to  be  anybody  who 
thought  he'd  git  reelected.  Greeley  was 
24 


'He  just  talked  to  us  that  time  out  of  his  heart  " 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
abusin'  him  in  The  Tribune  for  not  mak- 
in'  peace,  and  you  know  there  was  about 
half  the  North  that  always  let  Greeley 
do  their  thinkin'  fer  'em.  The  war  wan't 
comin'  on  at  all  —  seemed  as  if  they  never 
would  do  nuthin'.  Grant  was  hangin'  on 
to  Petersburg  like  a  dog  to  a  root,  but  it 
didn't  seem  to  do  no  good.  Same  with 
Sherman,  who  was  tryin'  to  take  Atlanta. 
The  country  was  just  petered  out  with 
the  everlastin'  taxes  an'  fight  in'  an'  dyin'. 
It  wa'n't  human  nature  to  be  patient  any 
longer,  and  they  just  spit  it  out  on  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  then,  right  on  top  of  all  the 
grumblin'  and  abusin',  he  up  and  made 
another  draft.  Course  he  was  right,  but  I 
tell  you  nobody  but  a  brave  man  would 
'a'  done  such  a  thing  at  that  minute ;  but 
he  did  it.  It  was  hard  on  us  out  here.  I 
tell  you  there  wa'n't  many  houses  in  this 
country  where  there  wa'n't  mournin'  goin' 
25 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
on.  It  didn't  seem  as  if  we  could  stand  any 
more  blood  lettin.'  Some  of  the  boys 
round  the  State  went  down  to  see  him 
about  it.  They  came  back  lookin'  pretty 
sheepish.  Joe  Medill,  up  to  Chicago,  told 
me  about  it  onct.  He  said,  '  We  just  told 
Mr.  Lincoln  we  couldn't  stand  another 
draft.  We  was  through  sendin'  men  down 
to  Petersburg  to  be  killed  in  trenches.  He 
didn't  say  nuthin' ;  just  stood  still,  lookin' 
down  till  we'd  all  talked  ourselves  out; 
and  then,  after  a  while,  he  lifted  up  his 
head,  and  looked  around  at  us,  slow-like; 
and  I  tell  you,  Billy,  I  never  knew  till 
that  minute  that  Abraham  Lincoln  could 
get  mad  clean  through.  He  was  just  white 
he  was  that  mad.  "Boys,"  he  says,  "you 
ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourselves.  You're 
actin'  like  a  lot  of  cowards.  You've  helped 
make  this  war,  and  you've  got  to  help 
fight  it.  You  go  home  and  raise  them  men 
26 


as-o-.  --- 


You're  actin'  like  a  lot  of  cowards.     You've   helped 
make  this  war,  and  you've  got  to  help  fight  it  " 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
and  don't  you  dare  come  down  here  again 
blubberin'  about  what  I  tell  you  to  do.  I 
won't  stan'  it."  We  was  so  scared  we 
never  said  a  word.  We  just  took  our  hats 
and  went  out  like  a  lot  of  school-boys. 
Talk  about  Abraham  Lincoln  bein'  easy ! 
When  it  didn't  matter  mebbe  he  was 
easy,  but  when  it  did  you  couldn't  stir 
him  any  more'n  you  could  a  mountain.' 
"  Well,  I  kept  hearin'  about  the  trouble 
he  was  havin'  with  everybody,  and  I  jusf 
made  up  my  mind  I'd  go  down  and  sea 
him  and  swap  yarns  and  tell  him  how  we 
was  all  countin'  on  his  gettin'  home. 
Thought  maybe  it  would  cheer  him  up  to 
know  we  set  such  store  on  his  comin' 
home  if  they  didn't  want  him  for  presi 
dent.  So  I  jest  picked  up  and  went  right 
off.  Ma  was  real  good  about  my  goin'. 
She  says,  'I  shouldn't  wonder  if  'twould 
do  him  good,  William.  And  don't  you  ask 
£7 


HE   KNEW    LINCOLN 
him    no  questions  about    the    war   nor 
about  politics.  You  just  talk  home  to  him 
and  tell  him  some  of  them  foolish  stories 
of  yourn/ 

"  Well,  I  had  a  brother  in  Washington, 
clerk  in  a  department  —  awful  set  up 
'cause  he  had  an  office  —  and  when  I  got 
down  there  I  told  him  I'd  come  to  visit 
Mr.  Lincoln.  He  says, '  William,  be  you  a 
fool  ?  Folks  don't  visit  the  President  of 
the  United  States  without  an  invitation, 
and  he's  too  busy  to  see  anybody  but  the 
very  biggest  people  in  this  administra 
tion.  Why,  he  don't  even  see  me,'  he  says. 
Well,  it  made  me  huffy  to  hear  him  talk. 
'  Isaac,'  I  says, '  I  don't  wonder  Mr.  Lin 
coln  don't  see  you.  But  it's  different  with 
me.  Him  and  me  is  friends.' 

"'Well'  he  says,  'you've  got  to  have 
cards  anyway.'   'Cards,'  I  says,   'what 
for  ?  What  kind  ?'  'Why,'  he  says,  'visit- 
£8 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
in*  cards  —  with  your  name  on.'  'Well,' 
I  says,  'it's  come  to  a  pretty  pass,  if  an 
old  friend  like  me  can't  see  Mr.  Lincoln 
without  sendin'  him  a  piece  of  paste 
board.  I'd  be  ashamed  to  do  such  a  thing, 
Isaac  Brown.  Do  you  suppose  he's  for 
gotten  me  ?  Needs  to  see  my  name  printed 
out  to  know  who  I  am  ?  You  can't  make 
me  believe  any  such  thing,'  and  I  walked 
right  out  of  the  room,  and  that  night  I 
footed  it  up  to  the  Soldiers'  Home  where 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  livin'  then,  right  among 
the  sick  soldiers  in  their  tents. 

"There  was  lots  of  people  settin' 
around  in  a  little  room,  waitin'  fer  him, 
but  there  wan't  anybody  there  I  knowed, 
and  I  wras  feelin'  a  little  funny  when  a 
door  opened  and  out  came  little  John 
Nicolay.  He  came  from  down  this  way, 
so  I  just  went  up  and  says,  'How'd  you 
do,  John;  where's  Mr  Lincoln?' 
29 


HE    KNEW    LINCOLN 
Well,  John  didn't  seem  over  glad  to  see 
me. 

"  *  Have  you  an  appintment  with  Mr. 
Lincoln  ?'  he  says. 

"  'No,  sir,'  I  says;  'I  ain't,  and  it  ain't 
necessary.  Mebbe  it's  all  right  and  fittin' 
for  them  as  wants  post-offices  to  have 
appintments,  but  I  reckon  Mr.  Lincoln's 
old  friends  don't  need  'em,  so  you  just 
trot  along,  Johnnie,  and  tell  him  Billy 
Brown's  here  and  see  what  he  says.'  Well, 
he  kind  a  flushed  up  and  set  his  lips  to 
gether,  but  he  knowed  me,  and  so  he  went 
off.  In  about  two  minutes  the  door  popped 
open  and  out  came  Mr.  Lincoln,  his  face 
all  lit  up.  He  saw  me  first  thing,  and  he 
laid  holt  of  me  and  just  shook  my  hands 
fit  to  kill.  'Billy,'  he  says,  'now  I  am 
glad  to  see  you.  Come  right  in.  You're 
goin*  to  stay  to  supper  with  Mary  and 


me*' 


30 


"We  went  out  on  the  bavk  xtoop  and  sat  down  and  talked 
and  talked  " 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
"Didn't  I  know  it  ?  Think  bein'  presi 
dent  would  change  him  —  not  a  mite. 
Well,  he  had  a  right  smart  lot  of  people 
to  see,  but  soon  as  he  was  through  we 
went  out  on  the  back  stoop  and  set  down 
and  talked  and  talked.  He  asked  me 
about  pretty  nigh  everybody  in  Spring 
field.  I  just  let  loose  and  told  him  about 
the  weddin's  and  births  and  the  funerals 
and  the  buildin',  and  I  guess  there  wan't 
a  yarn  I'd  heard  in  the  three  years  and  a 
half  he'd  been  away  that  I  didn't  spin  for 
him.  Laugh  —  you  ought  to  a  heard  him 
laugh  —  just  did  my  heart  good,  for  I 
could  see  what  they'd  been  doin'  to  him. 
Always  was  a  thin  man,  but,  Lordy,  he 
was  thinner'n  ever  now,  and  his  face  was 
kind  a  drawn  and  gray  —  enough  to  make 
you  cry. 

'''  Well,  we  had  supper  and  then  talked 
some  more,  and  about  ten  o'clock  I  start- 
31 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
ed  downtown.  Wanted  me  to  stay  all 
night,  but  I  says  to  myself,  '  Billy,  don't 
you  overdo  it.  You've  cheered  him  up, 
and  you  better  light  out  and  let  him  re 
member  it  when  he's  tired.'  So  I  said, 

*  Nope,  Mr.  Lincoln,  can't,  goin'  back  to 
Springfield  to-morrow.  Ma  don't  like  to 
have  me  away  and  my  fyoy  ain't  no  great 
shakes  keepin'   store.'  *  Billy,'  he  says, 

*  what  did  you  come  down  here  for  ? '  '  I 
come  to  see  you,  Mr.  Lincoln.'  'But  you 
ain't  asked  me  for  anything,  Billy.  What 
is  it  ?  Out  with  it.  Want  a  post-office  ?' 
he  said,  gigglin',  for  he  knowed  I  didn't. 

*  No,  Mr.  Lincoln,  just  wanted  to  see  you 
—  felt  kind  a  lonesome  —  been  so  long 
since  I'd  seen  you,  and  I  was  afraid  I'd 
forgit  some  of  them  yarns  if  I  didn't  un 
load  soon.' 

:*  Well,  sir,  you  ought  to  seen  his  face  as 
he  looked  at  me. 

32 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
"'Billy  Brown,'  he  says,  slow-like,  'do 
you  mean  to  tell  me  you  came  all  the  way 
from  Springfield,  Illinois,  just  to  have  a 
visit  with  me,  that  you  don't  want  an 
office  for  anybody,  nor  a  pardon  for  any 
body,  that  you  ain't  got  no  complaints  in 
your  pocket,  nor  any  advice  up  your 
sleeve  ? ' 

'"Yes,  sir/  I  says,  'that's  about  it,  and 
I'll  be  durned  if  I  wouldn't  go  to  Europe 
to  see  you,  if  I  couldn't  do  it  no  other  way, 
Mr.  Lincoln.' 

"Well,  sir,  I  never  was  so  astonished 
in  my  life.  He  just  grabbed  my  hand  and 
shook  it  nearly  off,  and  the  tears  just 
poured  down  his  face,  and  he  says, '  Billy, 
you  never'll  know  what  good  you've  done 
me.  I'm  homesick,  Billy,  just  plumb 
homesick,  and  it  seems  as  if  this  war 
never  would  be  over.  Many  a  night  I  can 
see  the  boys  a-dyin'  on  the  fields  and  can 
33 


HE    KNEW    LINCOLN 
hear  their  mothers  cryin'  for  'em  at  home, 
and  I  can't  help  'em,  Billy.  I  have  to  send 
them  down  there.  We've  got  to  save  the 
Union,  Billy,  we've  got  to.' 

"'Course  we  have,  Mr.  Lincoln,'  I 
says,  cheerful  as  I  could, '  course  we  have. 
Don't  you  worry.  It's  most  over.  You're 
goin'  to  be  reflected,  and  you  and  old 
Grant's  goin'  to  finish  this  war  mighty 
quick  then.  Just  keep  a  stiff  upper  lip, 
Mr.  Lincoln,  and  don't  forget  them  yarns 
I  told  you/^And  I  started  out.  But  seems 
as  if  he  couldn't  let  me  go.  *  Wait  a  min 
ute,  Billy,'  he  says,  *  till  I  get  my  hat  and 
I'll  walk  a  piece  with  you.'  It  was  one  of 
them  still  sweet-smellin'  summer  nights 
with  no  end  of  stars  and  you  ain't  no  idee 
how  pretty  'twas  walkin'  down  the  road. 
There  was  white  tents  showin'  through 
the  trees  and  every  little  way  a  tall  soldier 
standin'  stock  still,  a  gun  at  his  side. 
34 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
Made  me  feel  mighty  curious  and  solemn. 
By-and-by  we  come  out  of  the  trees  to  a 
sightly  place  where  you  could  look  all 
over  Washington  —  see  the  Potomac  and 
clean  into  Virginia.  There  was  a  bench 
there  and  we  set  down  and  after  a  while 
Mr.  Lincoln  he  begun  to  talk.  Well,  sir, 
you  or  nobody  ever  heard  anything  like 
it.  Blamed  if  he  didn't  tell  me  the  whole 
thing  —  all  about  the  war  and  the  gener 
als  and  Seward  and  Sumner  and  Con 
gress  and  Greeley  and  the  whole  blamed 
lot.  He  just  opened  up  his  heart  if  I  do 
say  it.  Seemed  as  if  he'd  come  to  a  p'int 
where  he  must  let  out.  I  dunno  how  long 
we  set  there  —  must  have  been  nigh 
morning,  fer  the  stars  begun  to  go  out 
before  he  got  up  to  go.  *  Good-by,  Billy,' 
he  says.  *  you're  the  first  person  I  ever 
unloaded  onto,  and  I  hope  you  won't 
think  I'm  a  baby,'  and  then  we  shook 
35 


\ 


HE    KNEW   LINCOLN 
hands  again,  and  I  walked  down  to  town 
and  next  day  I  come  home. 

"  Tell  you  what  he  said  ?  Nope,  I  can't. 
Can't  talk  about  it  somehow.  Fact  is,  I 
never  told  anybody  about  what  he  said 
that  night.  Tried  to  tell  ma  onct,  but  she 
cried,  so  I  give  it  up. 

"Yes,  that's  the  last  time  I  seen  him  — 
last  time  alive. 

"Wa'n't  long  after  that  things  began  to 
look  better.  War  began  to  move  right 
smart,  and,  soon  as  it  did,  there  wa'n't  no 
use  talkin'  about  anybody  else  for  Presi 
dent.  I  see  that  plain  enough,  and,  just  as 
I  told  him,  he  was  reflected,  and  him  an* 
Grant  finished  up  the  war  in  a  hurry.  I 
tell  you  it  was  a  great  day  out  here  when 
we  heard  Lee  had  surrendered.  'Twas 
just  like  gettin'  converted  to  have  the  war 
over.  Somehow  the  only  thing  I  could 
think  of  was  how  glad  Mr.  Lincoln  would 
56 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
be.  jMe  and  ma  reckoned  he'd  come 
right  out  and  make  us  a  visit  and  get 
rested,  and  we  began  right  off  to  make 
plans  about  the  reception  we'd  give 
him  —  brass  band  --  parade  —  speeches 
fireworks  —  everything.  Seems  as  if  I 
couldn't  think  about  anything  else.  I  was 
comin'  down  to  open  the  store  one  mor- 
nin',  and  all  the  way  down  I  was  plannin' 
how  I'd  decorate  the  windows  and  how 
I'd  tie  a  flag  on  that  old  chair,  when  I  see 
Hiram  Jones  comin'  toward  me.  He 
looked  so  old  and  all  bent  over  I  didn't 
know  what  had  happened.  *  Hiram,'  I 
says,  ' what's  the  matter?  Be  you 
sick?' 

"  *  Billy,'  he  says,  and  he  couldn't  hard 
ly  say  it,  'Billy,  they've  killed  Mr.  Lin 
coln.' 

"  Well,  I  just  turned  cold  all  over,  and 
then  I  flared  up.  '  Hiram  Jones,'  I  says, 
37 


HE    KNEW    LINCOLN 
*  you're  lyin,'  you're  crazy.  How  dare  you 
tell  me  that  ?  It  ain't  so/ 

" '  Don't  Billy,'  he  says, '  don't  go  on  so. 
I  ain't  lyin'.  It's  so.  He'll  never  come 
back,  Billy.  He's  dead!'  And  he  fell  to 
sobbin'  out  loud  right  there  in  the  street, 
and  somehow  I  knew  it  was  true. 

"*!  come  on  down  and  opened  the  door. 
People  must  have  paregoric  and  castor 
ile  and  liniment,  no  matter  who  dies ;  but 
I  didn't  put  up  the  shades.  I  just  sat  here 
and  thought  and  thought  and  groaned 
and  groaned.  It  seemed  that  day  as  if  the 
country  was  plumb  ruined  and  I  didn't 
care  much.  All  I  could  think  of  was  him. 
He  wan't  goin'  to  come  back.  He  wouldn't 
never  sit  here  in  that  chair  again.  He  was 
dead. 

"For  days  and  days  'twas  awful  here. 
Waitin'  and  waitin5.  Seemed  as  if  that 
funeral  never  would  end.  I  couldn't  bear 
36 


HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 
to  think  of  him  bein'  dragged  around  the 
country  and  havin'  all  that  fuss  made  over 
him.  He  always  hated  fussin'  so.  Still,  I 
s'pose  I'd  been  mad  if  they  hadn't  done  it. 
Seemed  awful,  though.  I  kind  a  felt  that 
he  belonged  to  us  now,  that  they  ought  to 
bring  him  back  and  let  us  have  him  now 
they'd  killed  him. 

"  Of  course  they  got  here  at  last,  and  I 
must  say  it  was  pretty  grand.  All  sorts 
of  big  bugs,  Senators  and  Congress 
men,  and  officers  in  grand  uniforms  and 
music  and  flags  and  crape.  They  certainly 
didn't  spare  no  pains  givin'  him  a  funeral. 
Only  we  didn't  want  'em.  We  wanted  to 
bury  him  ourselves,  but  they  wouldn't 
let  us.  I  went  over  onct  where  they'd  laid 
him  out  for  folks  to  see.  I  reckon  I  won't 
tell  you  about  that.  I  ain't  never  goin'  to 
get  that  out  of  my  mind.  I  wisht  a  million 
times  I'd  never  seen  him  lyin'  there  black 
59 


HE   KNEW    LINCOLN 
and  changed  —  that  I  could  only  see  him 
as  he  looked  sayin'  'good-by'  to  me  up 
to   the   Soldiers'   Home   in   Washington 
that  night. 

"  Ma  and  me  didn't  go  to  the  cemetery 
with  'em.  I  couldn't  stan'  it.  Didn't  seem 
right  to  have  sich  goin's  on  here  at  home 
where  he  belonged,  for  a  man  like  him. 
But  we  go  up  often  now,  ma  and  me  does, 
and  talk  about  him.  Blamed  if  it  don't 
seem  sometimes  as  if  he  was  right  there 
—  might  step  out  any  minute  and  say 
4 Hello,  Billy,  any  new  stories?' 

'Yes.  I  knowed  Abraham  Lincoln; 
knowed  him  well;  and  I  tell  you  there 
wan't  never  a  better  man  made.  Least 
wise  I  don't  want  to  know  a  better  one. 
He  just  suited  me  —  Abraham  Lincoln 
did." 


BACK  IN  '58 


BACK     THERE      1 1ST    '58 

Hear  'em?  Hear  the  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  debates?  Well,  I  should  say  I 
did.  Heard  every  one  of  'em.  Yes,  sir, 
for  about  two  months  back  there  in  '58, 
I  didn't  do  a  thing  but  travel  around  Il 
linois  listenin'  to  them  two  men  argue  out 
slavery;  and  wjien  I  wa'n't  listenin'  to 
'em  or  travelin'  around  after  'em,  I  was 
pretty  sure  to  be  settin'  on  a  fence  dis- 
cussin'.  Fur  my  part  I  never  did  under 
stand  how  the  crops  was  got  in  that  fall; 
seemed  to  me  about  all  the  men  in  the 
state  was  settin'  around  whittlin'  and  dis- 
cussin'. 

Made  Lincoln?  Yes,  I  reckon  you 
might  say  they  did.  There's  no  denyin' 
that's  when  the  country  outside  begun  to 
43 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

take  notice  of  him.  But  don't  you  make 
no  mistake,  them  debates  wa'n't  the  be- 
ginnin'  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  work  on 
slavery.  He'd  been  at  it  for  about  four 
years  before  they  come  off,  sweatin'  his 
brains  night  and  day.  The  hardest  piece 
of  thinkin'  I  ever  see  a  man  do.  Anybody 
that  wants  to  hear  about  him  back  there 
needn't  expect  stories.  He  wa'n't  tellin' 
stories  them  days.  No,  sir,  he  was 
thinkin'. 

Curious  about  him.  There  he  was, 
more'n  forty-five  years  old,  clean  out  of 
politics  and  settled  down  to  practice  law. 
Looked  as  if  he  wouldn't  do  much  of 
anything  the  rest  of  his  life  but  jog 
around  the  circuit,  when  all  of  a  suddint 
Douglas  sprung  his  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill.  You  remember  what  that  bill  was, 
don't  you? — let  Kansas  and  Nebraska  in 
as  territories  and  the  same  time  repealed 
the  Missouri  Compromise  keeping  slav- 

44 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

ery  out  of  that  part  of  the  country,  let 
the  people  have  it  or  not,  just  as  they 
wanted.  You  ain't  no  idee  how  that  bill 
stirred  up  Mr.  Lincoln.  I'll  never  forgit 
how  he  took  its  passin'.  'Twas  long  back 
in  the  spring  of  '54.  Lot  of  'em  was  set- 
tin'  in  here  tellin'  stories  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  right  in  the  middle  of  one  when  in 
bounced  Billy  Herndon  —  he  was  Lin 
coln's  law  partner,  you  know.  His  eyes 
was  blazin'  and  he  calls  out,  "They've  up 
set  the  Missouri  Compromise.  The  Kan 
sas-Nebraska  bill  is  passed." 

For  a  minute  everybody  was  still  as 
death — everybody  but  me.  "Hoorah!"  I 
calls  out,  "you  can  bet  on  Little  Dug 
every  time,"  for  I  was  a  Democrat  and, 
barrin'  George  Washington  and  Thomas 
Jefferson,  I  thought  Douglas  was  the 
biggest  man  God  ever  made.  Didn't 
know  no  more  what  that  bill  meant  than 
that  old  Tom-cat  in  the  window. 

45 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

"Hoorah!"  I  says,  and  then  I  hap 
pened  to  look  at  Mr.  Lincoln. 

He  was  all  in  a  heap,  his  head  dropped 
down  on  his  breast,  and  there  he  set  and 
never  spoke,  and  then  after  a  long  time 
he  got  up  and  went  out.  Never  finished 
that  story,  never  said  "Good-by,  boys," 
like  he  always  did,  never  took  notice  of 
nuthin',  just  went  out,  his  face  gray  and 
stern,  and  his  eyes  not  seein'  at  all. 

Well,  sir,  you  could  'a'  knocked  me 
over  with  a  feather.  I  never  seen  him  take 
anything  that  way  before.  He  was  a  good 
loser.  You  see  how  'twas  with  me,  Kan 
sas-Nebraska  wa'n't  nuthin'  but  politics, 
and  my  man  had  beat. 

I  told  Ma  about  it  when  I  got  home. 
"It  ain't  like  him  to  be  mad  because 
Douglas  has  beat,"  I  says,  "I  don't 
understand  it,"  and  Ma  says,  "I 
reckon  that's  just  it,  William,  you 
don't  understand  it."  Ma  was  awful 
46 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

touchy  when  anybody  seemed  to  criticise 
Mr.  Lincoln. 

I  s'pose  you're  too  young  to  recollect 
what  a  fuss  that  bill  stirred  up,  ain't  you? 
Must  V  heard  your  Pa  talk  about  it, 
though.  Whole  North  got  to  rowin' 
about  it.  Out  here  in  Illinois  lots  of 
Democrats  left  the  party  on  account  of  it, 
and  when  Douglas  came  back  that  sum 
mer  they  hooted  him  off  a  platform  up 
to  Chicago.  You  couldn't  stop  Douglas 
that  way.  That  just  stirred  up  his  blood. 

Far's  I  was  concerned  I  couldn't  see 
anything  the  matter  with  what  he'd  done. 
It  seemed  all  right  to  me  them  days  to  let 
the  folks  that  moved  into  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  do  as  Douglas  had  fixed  it  for 
'em,  have  slaves  or  not,  just  as  they  was 
a  mind  to.  And  I  tell  you,  when  Douglas 
came  around  here  and  talked  about  "pop 
ular  sovereignty,"  and  rolled  out  his  big 
sentences  about  the  sacred  right  of  self- 
47 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

government,  and  said  that  if  the  white 
people  in  Nebraska  was  good  enough  to 
govern  themselves,  they  was  good  enough 
to  govern  niggers,  I  felt  dead  sure  there 
wa'n't  no  other  side  to  it. 

What  bothered  me  was  the  way  Mr. 
Lincoln  kept  on  takin'  it.  He  got  so  he 
wa'n't  the  same,  'peared  to  be  in  a  brown 
study  all  the  time.  Come  in  here  and  set 
by  the  stove  with  the  boys  and  not  talk 
at  all.  Didn't  seem  to  relish  my  yarns 
either  like  he  used  to.  He  started  in  cam 
paigning  again,  right  away,  and  the  boys 
said  he  wouldn't  promise  to  go  any  place 
where  they  didn't  let  him  speak  against 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill.  I  heard  him 
down  here  that  fall — his  first  big  speech. 
I  hadn't  never  had  any  idee  what  was  in 
Abraham  Lincoln  before.  He  •  wa'n't  the 
same  man  at  all.  Serious — you  wouldn't 
believe  it,  seemed  to  feel  plumb  bad  about 
repealin'  the  Missouri  Compromise,  said 

48 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

'twas  wrong,  just  as  wrong  as  'twould  be 
to  repeal  the  law  against  bringing  in 
slaves  from  Africa.  I  must  say  I  hadn't 
thought  of  that  before. 

I  remember  some  of  the  things  he  said 
about  Douglas'  idee  of  popular  sover 
eignty,  just  as  well  as  if  'twas  yesterday. 
"When  the  white  man  governs  himself," 
he  said,  "that  is  self-government;  but 
when  he  governs  himself  and  also  gov 
erns  another,  that  is  more  than  self-gov 
ernment,  that  is  despotism."  "If  the 
negro  is  a  man,  then  my  ancient  faith 
teaches  me  that  all  men  are  created 
equal."  "No  man  is  good  enough  to 
govern  another  man  without  that  other's 
consent." 

And  he  just  lit  into  slavery  that  day. 
"I  hate  it,"  he  said.  "I  hate  it  because  it 
is  a  monstrous  injustice."  Yes,  sir,  them's 
the  very  words  he  used  way  back  there  in 
'54.  "I  hate  it  because  it  makes  the  ene- 
49 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

mies  of  free  institutions  call  us  hypo- 
crites,  I  hate  it  because  it  makes  men  cri 
ticise  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  say  there  ain't  no  right  principle  but 
self-interest."  More'n  one  old  abolition 
ist  who  heard  that  speech  said  that  they 
hadn't  no  idee  how  bad  slavery  was  or 
how  wicked  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill 
was  'til  then. 

As  time  went  on,  seemed  as  if  he  got 
more  serious  every  day.  Everybody  got 
to  noticin'  how  hard  he  was  takin'  it.  I 
remember  how  Judge  Dickey  was  in  here 
one  day  and  he  says  to  me,  "Billy,  Mr. 
Lincoln  is  all  used  up  over  this  Kansas- 
Nebraska  business.  If  he  don't  stop  wor- 
ryin'  so,  he'll  be  sick.  Why,  t'other  night 
up  to  Bloomington,  four  of  us  was  sleep- 
in'  in  the  same  room  and  Lincoln  talked 
us  all  to  sleep,  and  what  do  you  think?  I 
waked  up  about  daylight  and  there  he 
was  settin'  on  the  side  of  the  bed  with 

50 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

nuthin'  on  but  his  shirt,  and  when  he  see 
my  eyes  was  open  he  sings  out,  'I  tell 
you,  Judge,  this  country  can't  last  much 
longer  half-slave  and  half-free.'  Bin 
thinkin'  all  night  far's  I  know." 

Now,  sir,  that  was  much  as  three  years 
before  Mr.  Lincoln  said  them  self -same 
words  in  a  speech  right  in  this  town. 
Seems  to  me  I  can  hear  him  now  singin' 
it  out  shrill  and  far-soundin'.  "A  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  be 
lieve  this  government  cannot  endure  per 
manently  half-slave  and  half-free.  I  do 
not  expect  the  house  to  fall — but  I  do  ex 
pect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  be 
come  all  the  one  thing1  or  all  the  other." 
Them's  his  very  words.  It  made  me  cold 
when  I  heard  'em.  If  we  wa'n't  goin'  to 
git  on  half-slave  and  half-free  like  we'd 
always  done,  what  was  goin'  to  happen? 

He  hitched  on  another  idee  to  this  one 
about  our  becomin'  all  slave  or  all  free, 

51 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

which  bothered  me  considerable — that 
was,  that  Douglas  and  Buchanan  and  the 
rest  of  the  big  Democrats  was  in  a  con 
spiracy  to  spread  slavery  all  over  the 
Union.  He'd  been  sayin'  right  along  that 
they  didn't  mind  slavery  spreadin',  but 
now  he  came  out  flat-footed  and  said  the 
things  they'd  been  doin'  in  Congress  and 
in  the  Supreme  Court  for  a  few  years 
back  showed  that  they  was  tryin'  to  legal 
ize  slavery  in  all  the  states,  north  and 
south,  old  and  new.  He  said  that  the  re 
peal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  and 
Judge  Taney's  decision  that  Congress 
couldn't  keep  slaves  out  of  a  territory— 
and  the  way  Pierce  and  Buchanan  had 
worked,  fitted  together  like  timbers  for  a 
house.  "If  you  see  a  lot  of  timbers,"  he 
says,  "all  gotten  out  at  different  times 
and  different  places  by  Stephen,  Frank 
lin,  Roger  and  James"  — them  was  the 
names  of  Douglas,  Pierce,  Taney  and 

52 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

Buchanan,  you  know — "and  you  find 
they  fit  into  a  frame  for  a  house,  you 
can't  help  believing  them  men  have  been 
workin'  on  the  same  plan." 

I  tell  you  that  speech  riled  his  party. 
They  said  he  oughtn't  said  it,  if  he  did 
think  it.  It  was  too  radical.  They  talked 
to  him  so  much,  tryin'  to  tone  him  down 
and  to  keep  him  from  doin'  it  ag'in,  that 
he  flared  up  one  day  in  here  and  he  says, 
"Boys,  if  I  had  to  take  a  pen  and  scratch 
out  every  speech  I  ever  made  except 
one,  this  speech  you  don't  like's  the 
one  I'd  leave."  And  he  says  it  with 
his  head  up,  lookin'  as  proud  as  if  he 
was  a  Senator. 

Well,  somehow,  as  time  went  on,  just 
watchin'  Mr.  Lincoln  so  dead  in  earnest 
begun  to  make  me  feel  queer.  And  I  got 
serious.  Never'd  been  so  but  twict  before 
in  my  life — once  at  a  revival  and  next 
time  when  I  thought  I  wasn't  goin'  to  git 

53 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

Ma.  But  I  joined  the  church  and  Ma  and 
me  got  married,  and  after  that  there 
didn't  seem  to  be  anything  left  to  worry 
about. 

And  then  this  comes  along,  and  I'll  be 
blamed  if  it  didn't  git  so  I  couldn't  hear 
enough  of  it.  Night  after  night,  when 
they  was  in  here  discussin',  every  minute 
I  wa'n't  puttin'  up  something,  I  was  lis- 
tenin'  to  'em. 

And  then  I  took  to  runnin'  around  to 
hear  the  speeches.  I  was  up  to  Bloom- 
ington  in  '56  the  time  Lincoln  went  over 
to  the  Republicans.  The  old  Whigs  down 
here  had  been  considerable  worried  for 
fear  he  would  quit  'em,  and  I  must  say  it 
worried.  I  never'd  had  any  use  for  a  man 
who  left  his  party.  Couldn't  understand 
it.  Seemed  to  me  then  that  'twa'n't  no 
better  than  gittin'  a  divorce  from  your 
wife.  I've  changed  my  views  since  about 
several  things.  Had  to  jump  the  party 

54 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

myself  two  or  three  times,  and  I've  seen 
women —  Well,  all  I've  got  to  say  is,  that 
I  ain't  judgin'  the  man  that  gits  a  divorce 
from  'em. 

As  I  was  sayin',  I  was  up  to  Bloom- 
ington  that  night.  Nobody  that  didn't 
hear  that  speech  ever  knows  what  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  could  do.  Lots  of  'em  will 
tell  you  he  was  homely.  Seems  to  me 
sometimes  that's  about  all  some  folks 
around  here  has  to  tell  about  Abraham 
Lincoln.  "Yes,  I  knowed  him,"  they  say. 
"He  was  the  homeliest  man  in  Sangamon 
County."  Well,  now,  don't  you  make  no 
mistake.  The  folks  that  don't  tell  you 
nuthin'  but  that  never  knowed  Mr.  Lin 
coln.  Mebbe  they'd  seen  him,  but  they 
never  knowed  him.  He  wa'n't  homely. 
There's  no  denyin'  he  was  long  and  lean, 
and  he  didn't  always  stand  straight  and 
lie  wasn't  pertikeler  about  his  clothes, 
but  that  night  up  to  Bloomington  in  ten 

55 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

minutes  after  he  struck  that  platform,  I 
tell  you  he  was  the  handsomest  man  I 
ever  see. 

He  knew  what  he  was  doin'  that  night. 
He  knew  he  was  cuttin'  loose.  He  knew 
them  old  Whigs  was  goin'  to  have  it  in 
for  him  for  doin'  it,  and  he  meant  to  show 
'em  he  didn't  care  a  red  cent  what  they 
thought.  He  knew  there  was  a  lot  of 
fools  in  that  new  party  he  was  joinin' — 
the  kind  that's  always  takin'  up  with 
every  new  thing  comes  along  to  git  some 
thing  to  orate  about.  He  saw  clear  as  day 
that  if  they  got  started  right  that  night, 
he'd  got  to  fire  'em  up;  and  so  he  threw 
back  his  shoulders  and  lit  in. 

Good  Lord!  I  never  see  anything  like 
it.  In  ten  minutes  he  was  about  eight  feet 
tall ;  his  face  was  white,  his  eyes  was  blaz- 
in'  fire,  and  he  was  thunderin',  "Kansas 
shall  be  free!"  "Ballots,  not  bullets!" 
"We  won't  go  out  of  the  Union  and  you 
56 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

sha'n't!"  Generally  when  he  was  speak- 
in',  he  was  cool  and  quiet  and  things  all 
fit  together,  and  when  you  come  away 
you  was  calm — but  your  head  was  work- 
in';  but  that  time  up  to  Bloomington  he 
was  like — what's  that  the  Bible  calls  it? 
— "avengin'  fire" — yes,  sir,  that's  it,  he 
was  like  "avengin'  fire."  I  never  knew 
exactly  what  did  happen  there.  All  I 
recollect  is  that  at  the  beginnin'  of  that 
speech  I  was  settin'  in  the  back  of  the 
room,  and  when  I  come  to  I  was  hangin' 
on  to  the  front  of  the  platform.  I  recol 
lect  I  looked  up  and  seen  Jo  Medill 
standin'  on  the  reporter's  table  lookin' 
foolish-like  and  heard  him  say:  "Good 
Lord,  boys,  I  ain't  took  a  note!" 

Fact  was  he'd  stampeded  that  audi 
ence,  reporters  and  all.  I've  always 
thought  that  speech  made  the  Republi 
can  party  in  Illinois.  It  melted  'em  to 
gether.  'Twa'n't  arguments  they  needed 
57 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

just  then,  it  was  meltin'  together  of  what 
they'd  heard. 

Well,  he  went  right  on  speakin'  after 
that,  must  'a'  made  forty  or  fifty  speeches 
all  over  the  ;State,  for  Fremont,  and 
he  got  no  end  of  invitations  from  Indiana 
and  Iowa  and  Kansas  and  all  around  to 
come  over  and  speak.  Old  Billy  Hern- 
don  used  to  come  in  here  and  brag  about 
it.  You'd  thought  'twas  him  was  gittin' 
'em.  Always  seemed  to  think  he  owned 
Lincoln  anyway. 

By  the  time  the  Republicans  wanted  a 
man  for  United  States  Senate  Lincoln 
was  first  choice,  easy  enough,  and  the  first 
thing  anybody  knew  if  he  didn't  up  and 
challenge  Douglas,  who  the  Democrats 
was  runnin',  to  seven  debates  —  seven 
joint  debates,  they  called  'em.  You  could 
'a'  knocked  me  over  with  a  feather  when 
I  heard  that.  I  couldn't  think  of  anybody 
I  knew  challengin'  Mr.  Douglas.  It 
58 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

seemed  impertinent,  him  bein'  what  I 
thought  him.  But  I  was  glad  they  was 
goin'  to  thresh  it  out.  You  see  I  was  feel- 
in'  mighty  uncertain  in  my  mind  by  this 
time.  Somehow  I  couldn't  seem  to  git 
around  the  p'ints  I'd  been  hearin'  Mr. 
Lincoln  make  so  much.  However,  I 
didn't  have  no  idee  but  what  Mr.  Doug 
las  wrould  show  clear  enough  where  he 
was  wrong.  So  when  I  heard  about 
the  debates,  I  says  to  Ma,  "Johnnie 
can  take  care  of  the  store,  I'm  goin' 
to  hear  'em  ." 

You  ain't  no  idee  how  people  was 
stirred  up  by  the  news.  Seemed  as  if 
everybody  in  the  State  felt  about  as  I  did. 
Most  everybody  was  pretty  sober  about 
it,  too.  There  ain't  no  denyin'  that  there 
was  a  lot  of  Democrats  just  like  me. 
What  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  sayin'  for 
four  years  back  had  struck  in  and  they 
was  worried.  Still  I  reckon  the  most  of 
59 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

the  Republicans  was  a  blamed  sight  more 
uneasy  than  we  was.  They'd  got  so  used 
to  seein'  Douglas  git  everything  he  went 
after,  that  they  thought  he'd  be  sure  to 
lick  Lincoln  now.  I  heard  'em  talkin' 
about  it  among  themselves  every  now  and 
then  and  sayin,  "I  wisht  Lincoln  hadn't 
done  it.  He  ain't  had  experience  like 
Douglas.  Why,  Douglas's  been  debatin' 
fer  twelve  years  in  the  United  States 
Senate  with  the  biggest  men  in  the  coun 
try,  and  he's  always  come  out  ahead. 
Lincoln  ain't  got  a  show." 

You  needn't  think  Mr.  Lincoln  didn't 
know  how  they  was  talkin'.  He  never 
made  no  mistake  about  himself,  Mr.  Lin 
coln  didn't.  He  knew  he  wa'n't  a  big  gun 
like  Douglas.  I  could  see  he  was  blue  as 
a  whetstone  sometimes,  thinkin'  of  the 
difference  between  'em.  "What's  ag'in 
us  in  this  campaign,  boys,"  I  heard  him 
say  one  day,  "is  me.  There  ain't  no  use 
60 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

denyin'  that  Douglas  has  always  been  a 
big  success  and  I've  always  been  a  flat 
failure.  Everybody  expects  him  to  be 
President  and  always  has  and  is  actin' 
accordin'.  Nobody's  ever  expected  any 
thing  from  me.  I  tell  you  we've  got  to 
run  this  campaign  on  principle.  There 
ain't  nuthin'  in  your  candidate."  And  he 
looked  so  cast  down  I  felt  plum  sorry  for 
him. 

But  you  needn't  think  by  that  that  he 
was  shirkin'  it — no,  sir,  not  a  mite.  Spite 
of  all  his  blues,  he'd  set  his  teeth  for  a 
fight.  One  day  over  to  the  Chenery 
House  I  recollect  standin'  with  two  or 
three  Republicans  when  Mr.  Lincoln 
come  along  and  stopped  to  shake  hands 
with  a  chap  from  up  to  Danville.  "How's 
things  lookin'  up  your  way,  Judge?"  he 
says. 

"Well,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  the  Judge  says, 
"we're  feelin'  mighty  anxious  about  this 
61 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

debate  of  yourn  with  Douglas,"  and  the 
way  he  said  it  I  could  'a'  kicked  him. 

Mr.  Lincoln  looked  at  him  mighty 
sober  for  a  minute.  "Judge,"  he  says, 
"didn't  you  ever  see  two  men  git  tin' 
ready  for  a  fight?  Ain't  you  seen  one  of 
'em  swell  up  his  muscle  and  pat  it  and 
brag  how  he's  goin'  to  knock  the  stuffin' 
out  of  the  other,  and  that  other  man 
clinchin'  his  fist  and  settin'  his  teeth  and 
savin'  his  wind.  Well,  sir,  the  other  is 
goin'  to  win  the  fight  or  die  trying"  and 
with  that  he  turns  and  goes  off. 

Didn't  I  know  that's  the  way  he  felt. 
I  hadn't  been  watchin'  him  sweatin'  his 
brains  on  that  darned  question  for  four 
years  without  knowin'.  I  tell  you  nobody 
that  didn't  see  him  often  them  days,  and 
didn't  care  enough  about  him  to  feel  bad 
when  he  felt  bad,  can  ever  understand 
what  Abraham  Lincoln  went  through 
before  his  debates  with  Douglas.  He 
62 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

worked  his  head  day  and  night  tryin'  to 
git  that  slavery  question  figured  out  so 
nobody  could  stump  him.  Greatest  man 
to  think  things  out  so  nobody  could  git 
around  him  I  ever  see.  Hadn't  any  pa 
tience  with  what  wa'n't  clear.  What  wor 
ried  him  most,  I  can  see  now,  was  makin' 
the  rest  of  us  understand  it  like  he  did. 

Well,  as  I  was  sayin',  it  seemed  as  if 
all  Illinois  turned  out  to  hear  'em  speak. 
A  country  fair  wa'n't  nuthin'  to  the 
crowds.  There  wa'n't  any  too  many  rail 
roads  in  Illinois  in  '58,  and  they  didn't 
select  the  places  fur  the  debates  accordin' 
to  connections.  I  reckon  I  traveled  about 
all  the  ways  there  be  gettin'  to  the  places : 
foot,  horseback,  canal-boat,  stage,  side- 
wheeler,  just  got  around  any  way  that 
come  handy;  et  and  slept  the  same.  Up 
to  Quincy  I  recollect  I  put  up  on  the 
bluff,  and  over  to  Charlestown  me  and 
seven  of  the  boys  had  two  beds.  Nobody 
63 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

seemed  to  mind.  We  was  all  too  took  up 
with  the  speeches,  seemed  as  if  the  more 
you  heard  the  more  you  wanted  to  hear. 
I  tell  you  they  don't  have  no  such 
speeches  nowadays.  There  ain't  two  men 
in  the  United  States  today  could  git  the 
crowds  them  two  men  had  or  hold  'em  if 
they  got  'em. 

I  sort  of  expected  some  new  line  of 
argument  from  Douglas  when  they 
started  out,  but  'twa'n't  long  before  we 
all  saw  he  wa'n't  goin'  to  talk  about  any 
thing  but  popular  sovereignty — that  is,  if 
he  could  help  himself.  As  it  turned  out  he 
didn't  git  his  way.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  made 
up  his  mind  that  the  Judge  had  got  to  say 
whether  he  thought  slavery  was  right  or 
wrong.  Accordin'  to  him,  that  was  the 
issue  of  the  campaign.  He  argued  that 
Douglas'  notion  of  popular  sovereignty 
was  all  right  if  slavery  was  as  good  as 
freedom,  but  that  if  it  wa'n't,  his  argu- 
64 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

ments  wa'n't  worth  a  rush.  He  said  the 
difference  between  him  and  the  Judge 
was  that  one  thought  slavery  wras  wrong 
and  ought  to  be  kept  where  it  was  till  it 
died  out  of  itself,  and  the  other  thought 
it  was  right  and  ought  to  be  spread  all 
over  the  country. 

It  made  Little  Dug  awful  mad  to  face 
that  line  of  argument.  He  said  such  talk 
proved  Lincoln  was  an  abolitionist,  and 
as  for  his  bein'  in  a  conspiracy  to  spread 
slavery  it  was  a  lie,  "an  infamous  lie." 
Well,  I  always  did  think  conspiracy  was 
a  pretty  strong  word  for  Lincoln  to  use. 
Strictly  speakin',  I  reckon  'twa'n't  one, 
but  all  the  same  it  didn't  look  right 
Douglas  couldn't  deny  that  when  he  got 
the  Missouri  Compromise  repealed  he 
let  slavery  into  territory  that  the  govern 
ment  had  set  aside  to  be  free.  He  couldn't 
deny  that  Judge  Taney  had  decided  that 
Congress  couldn't  prevent  people  takin' 
65 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

slaves  into  this  territory.  There  was  some 
other  things  which  fitted  in  with  these 
which  Douglas  couldn't  deny. 

Mr.  Lincoln  argued  from  wiiat  they'd 
done  that  there  wa'n't  any  reason  why 
they  shouldn't  go  on  and  apply  the  same 
legislation  to  all  the  other  free  parts  of 
the  country,  said  he  believed  they  would 
in  time  if  they  thought  it  would  pay 
better. 

The  more  I  heard  'em  argue  the  more 
I  felt  Lincoln  was  right.  Suppose,  I 
says  to  myself,  that  they  take  it  into  their 
heads  to  open  Illinois?  What's  to  stop 
'em?  If  slaves  can  be  took  into  Nebraska 
by  the  divine  right  of  self-government, 
what's  to  prevent  the  divine  right  of  self- 
government  lettin'  'em  in  here?  Of 
course,  there  was  an  old  law  settin'  aside 
the  Northwest  to  freedom,  but  if  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise  could  be  repealed,  why 
couldn't  that?  Then,  again,  what's  to 
66 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

prevent  the  Supreme  Court  decidiii'  that 
Congress  couldn't  keep  slaves  out  of  a 
state  just  as  it  had  decided  that  Congress 
couldn't  keep  'em  out  of  a  territory.  The 
more  I  thought  of  it  the  more  I  see  there 
wa'n't  anything  to  prevent  men  like 
Douglas  and  Buchanan  tryin'  some  day 
to  apply  the  same  line  of  argument  to  Il 
linois  or  Pennsylvania  or  New  York  or 
any  other  free  state  that  they  was  usin' 
now. 

I  wa'n't  goin'  to  stand  for  that.  I  don't 
pretend  I  ever  felt  like  Mr.  Lincoln  did 
about  niggers.  No,  sir,  I  was  a  Demo 
crat,  and  I  wanted  the  South  let  alone. 
I  didn't  want  to  hear  no  abolition  talk. 
But  I  was  dead  agin'  havin'  any  more 
slaves  than  we  could  help,  and  what's 
more  I  wa'n't  myself  willin'  to  live  in  a 
state  where  they  was.  I'd  seen  enough 
for  that.  Back  in  the  '40's,  when  I  first 
started  up  this  store,  I  used  to  go  to  New 
67 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

Orleans  for  my  goods  and,  bein'  young, 
of  course  I  had  to  see  the  sights.  A  man 
don't  go  to  a  slave  market  many  times 
without  gittin'  to  feel  that  as  far  as  he  is 
concerned  he  don't  want  nuthin'  to  do 
with  buyin'  and  sellin'  humans,  black  or 
white.  Ma,  too,  she  was  dead  set  agin'  it, 
and  she'd  said  many  a  time  when  I  was 
talkin',  "William,  if  Mr.  Douglas  don't 
really  care  whether  we  git  to  be  all  slave 
or  not,  you  oughten  to  vote  for  him,"  and 
I'd  always  said  I  wouldn't.  Still  I 
couldn't  believe  at  first  but  what  he  did 
care.  By  the  time  the  debates  was  half 
through  I  seen  it  clear  enough,  though. 
He  didn't  care  a  red  cent — said  he  didn't. 
There  was  lots  of  others  seen  it  same  as 
me.  I  heard  more'n  one  old  Democrat 
say,  "Douglas  don't  care.  Lincoln's  got 
it  right,  we've  got  to  keep  slavery  back 
now  or  it's  going  to  spread  all  over  the 
country." 

68 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

You  never  would  believe  how  I  felt 
when  I  seen  that,  for  that  meant  goin' 
back  on  Little  Dug,  leavin'  the  party  and 
votin'  for  a  Black  Republican,  as  we  used 
to  call  'em.  I  tell  you  when  I  begun  to 
see  where  I  was  goin'  there  wa'n't  many 
nights  I  didn't  lie  awake  tryin'  to  figure 
out  how  I  could  git  around  it.  'T wa'n't 
long,  though,  before  I  got  over  feelin' 
bad.  Fact  was  every  time  I  heard  Mr. 
Lincoln — I  used  to  go  to  all  the  speeches 
between  debates,  and  there  must  have 
been  twenty  or  thirty  of  them — he  made 
it  clearer.  'Twas  amazin'  how  every  time 
he  always  had  some  new  way  of  puttin' 
it.  Seemed  as  if  his  head  was  so  full  he 
couldn't  say  the  same  thing  twice  alike. 

One  thing  that  made  it  easier  was  that 
I  begun  to  see  that  Douglas  wa'n't  thin- 
kin'  much  of  anything  but  gittin  elected 
and  that  Lincoln  wa'n't  thinkin'  about 
that  at  all.  He  was  dead  set  on  makin' 
69 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

us  understand.  Lots  of  people  seen  that 
the  first  thing.  I  recollect  how  up  to 
Quincy  that  funny  fellow,  what  do  you 
call  him?  "Nasby-Petr oleum  V.  Nasby." 
Young  chap  then.  Well,  he'd  come  out 
there  for  some  paper.  Wanted  to  write 
Lincoln  up.  It  was  in  the  evening  after 
the  debate  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  settin' 
up  in  his  room  at  the  hotel  with  his  boots 
off  and  his  feet  on  a  chair — lettin'  'em 
breathe,  he  said.  Had  his  coat  and  vest 
off.  Nuthin'  on  to  speak  of  but  his  pants 
and  one  suspender — settin'  there  restin' 
and  gassin'  with  the  boys  when,  as  I 
started  to  say,  Mr.  Nasby  come  up.  They 
had  a  long  talk  and  I  walked  down  street 
with  him  when  he  left. 

"That  Lincoln  of  yourn  is  a  great 
man,"  he  says  after  a  spell.  "He  ain't 
botherin'  about  the  Senate — not  a  mite. 
He's  tryin'  to  make  the  people  of  Illi 
nois  understand  the  danger  there  is  in 
70 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

slavery  spreadin'  all  over  the  country. 
He's  a  big  man,  the  biggest  man  I've 
seen  in  a  long  time." 

Well,  that  sounded  good  to  me,  for 
that  was  just  about  what  I'd  figured  out 
by  that  time,  that  Lincoln  was  a  big  man, 
a  bigger  man  than  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 
Didn't  seem  possible  to  me  it  could  be  so, 
but  the  more  I  went  over  it  in  my  mind 
the  more  certain  I  felt  about  it.  Yes,  sir, 
I'd  figured  it  out  at  last  what  bein'  big 
was,  that  it  was  bein'  right  thinkin' 
things  out  straight  and  then  hangin'  on 
to  'em  because  they  was  right.  That  was 
bein'  big  and  that  was  Abraham  Lincoln 
all  through — the  whole  of  him. 

That  wa'n't  Douglas  at  all.  He  didn't 
care  whether  he  thought  right  or  not,  if 
he  got  what  he  was  after.  There  wa'n't 
no  real  truth  in  him.  See  what  he  did  in 
t£.e  very  first  debate  up  to  Ottawa.  He 
started  out  up  there  by  callin'  Lincoln  an 
71 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

abolitionist  and  sayin'  he  wanted  a  nigger 
wife,  and  to  prove  it  read  a  lot  of  aboli 
tion  resolutions  which  he  said  Lincoln 
had  helped  git  up  as  far  back  as  '54.  The 
very  next  day  after  that  debate,  the  Chi 
cago  Tribune  came  out  and  showed  that 
Mr.  Lincoln- hadn't  ever  had  anything  to 
do  with  the  resolutions  Douglas  had  read. 
Yes,  sir,  them  resolutions  had  come  from 
some  measely  abolition  meetin'  where 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  never  been.  Douglas 
had  been  tryin'  to  play  a  trick  on  us.  I 
tell  you  when  that  news  got  out  you 
could  'a'  heard  a  pin  drop  among  Illinois 
Democrats.  It  seemed  as  if  he  couldn't 
realize  how  serious  we  was  feelin'  or  he 
wouldn't  try  a  trick  like  that. 

Then  he  was  always  draggin'  in  things 
which  didn't  have  no  bearin'  on  the  case, 
and  takin'  up  Lincoln's  time  makin'  him 
answer  'em.  One  was  a-tellin'  how  Lin 
coln  had  voted  against  givin'  money  to 

72 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

carry  on  the  Mexican  War.  Now,  I  know 
that  wa'n't  so,  and  more'n  that  it  didn't 
have  anything  to  do  with  the  question. 
It  made  me  feel  plumb  bad  to  have  him 
goin'  on  that  way. 

And  that's  the  way  he  kept  it  up.  Al 
ways  digressin',  never  takin'  up  a  p'int 
till  Lincoln  had  drove  him  into  a  corner, 
always  insistin'  Lincoln  wanted  a  nigger 
wife.  Why,  he  made  so  much  of  that  fool 
lie  that  there  was  a  lot  of  people  got  to 
thinkin'  mebbe  that's  what  Lincoln's 
idees  did  mean.  There's  a  man  livin'  here 
in  this  town  now  that's  got  a  little  book 
Lincoln  made  for  him  to  show  around 
and  to  prove  he  didn't  mean  nuthin'  of 
the  kind. 

Fact  was,  Douglas  never  meant  to 
argue  it  out  fair  and  square.  He  meant 
to  dodge,  to  mix  us  up  and  keep  our 
minds  off  Kansas  -  Nebraska  and  old 
Judge  Taney,  and  all  the  things  Lincoln 
73 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

made  so  much  of.  I  recollect  Lincoln  said 
one  day  that  the  way  Douglas  acted  re 
minded  him  of  a  cuttle-fish  throwin'  out 
a  black  ink  to  color  up  the  water  so  he 
could  git  away  from  something  that  was 
chasin'  him. 

Of  course  what  made  Douglas  seem 
worse  was  Lincoln  bein'  so  fair  and  so 
dead  in  earnest.  Sometimes  it  seemed  as 
if  he  was  givin'  the  whole  case  away,  he 
was  so  honest  with  Douglas.  But  he 
knew  what  he  was  doin'  every  time.  Lin 
coln  was  the  kind  that  breaks  to  win. 
And  serious,  why  he  wouldn't  take  time 
to  tell  a  story.  I  recollect  sayin'  to  him 
one  day,  "Mr.  Lincoln,  why  don't  you 
make  us  laugh  sometimes?"  "This  ain't 
no  time  for  stories,  Billy,"  he  says,  "it's 
too  serious." 

Felt  bad  because  he  wa'n't  elected? 
Nope.  Didn't  expect  him  to  be.  Some 
how  I'd  got  to  feelin'  by  the  time  elec- 
74 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

tion  come  that  it  didn't  make  no  real  dif 
ference  whether  he  went  to  the  Senate  or 
not.  His  goin'  there  wa'n't  goin'  to  settle 
the  question.  What  was  goin'  to  settle  it 
was  gettin'  more  people  to  feel  as  he  did 
about  it.  If  he  got  beat  tryin'  to  make 
people  understand,  it  was  worth  a  sight 
more  to  the  country  than  his  gettin' 
elected  dodgin'  the  truth.  I  didn't  figure 
that  out  alone,  though,  it  was  Mr.  Lincoln 
helped  me  to  see  that. 

You  see,  after  I'd  made  up  my  mind 
I'd  vote  the  Republican  ticket,  one  day 
when  I  was  walkin'  down  the  street  with 
him  here  in  town  and  there  wa'n't  nobody 
around  I  told  him-.  He  looks  at  me  sharp- 
like  and  then  he  says,  mighty  solemn: 
"Billy,  are  you  sure  you  know  what 
you're  doin'?  What's  the  reason  you're 
leavin'  the  party?  'Cause  you  want  to  see 
me  git  in?" 

"No,  sir,"  I  says,  "that  ain't  it  at  all. 
75 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

I'm  a  Democrat.  Besides,  I  hate  like  all 
possessed  to  go  back  on  Little  Doug,  you 
know  what  store  I've  always  set  by  him. 
The  reason  I'm  votin'  for  you,  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  is  because  you've  got  it  right  and 
nobody  can  git  around  it.  Douglas  is 
wrong.  There  ain't  nuthin'  else  to  do  but 
vote  for  your  side,  much-  as  I  hate  to." 

Well,  sir,  you  never  seen  how  he 
straightened  up  and  how  his  eyes  lit  up 
like  I'd  seen  'em  do  when  he  was  speakin'. 

"Billy,"  he  says,  "I'd  ruther  hear  you 
say  that  than  anything  anybody  could 
say.  That's  what  I've  been  tryin'  to  do — 
to  make  people  see  it  as  I  do.  I  believe 
I've  got  it  figured  out  right,  Billy.  I've 
been  at  it  night  and  day  for  four  years, 
and  I  can't  find  no  mistake  in  my  line  of 
argument.  What  I  want  is  to  make  peo 
ple  understand." 

"What  bothers  me,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  I 
says,  "is  that  I  don't  believe  you'll  git 
76 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

elected,  even  if  you  are  right,"  and  then, 
sir,  he  throws  back  his  head  and  just 
laffs  right  out  loud.  "Don't  worry,  Billy, 
about  that,"  he  says,  "that  don't  make 
no  difference.  I  ain't  sayin'  I  don't  want 
to  go  to  the  United  States  Senate — I  do! 
Always  have.  When  I  quit  politics  in 
'49  and  made  up  my  mind  I  wa'n't  goin' 
to  have  another  chanct  to  go  to  Congress 
or  be  anybody,  I  was  miserable.  But 
that's  all  over.  What's  important  now  in 
this  country  is  makin'  people  feel  that 
slavery  is  wrong,  that  the  South  is  bent 
on  spreadin'  it  and  that  we've  got  to  stop 
'em.  Slavery  is  wrong,  Billy,  if  it  ain't 
wrong  nuthin'  is.  We've  got  to  fight 
against  its  spreadin',  and  it's  goin'  to  be 
a  durable  struggle.  It  don't  make  no 
difference  who  gits  office  or  who  don't. 
All  that's  important  is  keepin'  on  fight- 
in'.  Don't  you  worry  if  I  ain't  elected. 
The  fight's  goin'  on." 

77 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

Well,  I  thought  that  over  a  lot,  and  it 
was  queer  how  calm  I  came  to  feel — 
calm  and  sure,  just  as  you  be  about  God 
and  all  that.  And  when  he  was  defeated 
I  didn't  seem  to  mind — any  more'n  he 
did.  There  wa'n't  hardly  anybody  could 
understand  why  he  took  it  so  easy,  and 
he  had  to  go  around  consolin'  'em  an' 
stifFenin'  'em  up  and  tellin'  'em  as  he  had 
me,  how  it  was  a  durable  struggle — that's 
the  word  he  always  used — "durable." 
Always  seemed  to  me  it  was  exactly  the 
word  for  it — something  that  wa'n't  go 
ing  to  wear  out. 

Ever  see  Douglas  after  that?  Yes, 
onct.  One  day  after  election  he  come  in 
here,  and  after  talkin'  around  a  spell  he 
says  suddint: 

"Billy,    you  supported  Mr.  Lincoln, 

didn't  you?"  And  he  looked  me  straight 

in  the  eye,   kind,   but  meanin'  to  know 

from  me.  Well,  you  bet  I'd  liked  to  have 

78 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

lied,  but  that  ain't  the  kind  of  a  thing  a 
man  lies  about. 

"Yes,  Mr.  Douglas,"  I  says,  "I  did.  I 
had  to.  He  had  it  right." 

Well,  sir,  you  never  see  the  way  he 
smiled  at  me.  "That's  right,  Billy,"  he 
says,  "I  understand,"  and  then  he  grips 
my  hand  and  turns  on  his  heel  and  goes 
off  with  his  head  down. 

Seemed  to  me  I  couldn't  stand  it.  You 
see  I'd  always  loved  Little  Dug,  and  I'd 
been  proud  of  him.  Lordy,  sometimes 
when  he'd  come  back  from  Washington 
in  them  old  days  and  come  in  here,  all 
dressed  up  and  lookin'  so  handsome  and 
great,  and  come  up  and  put  his  arm 
around  me  and  ask  about  Ma  and  John 
nie  and  how  business  was,  I'll  be  blamed 
if  I  didn't  git  red  as  a  girl,  I  was  so 
pleased.  I'd  hurrahed  for  him  and  voted 
for  him  for  years,  and  here  I  had  gone 
back  on  him.  It  just  made  me  sick. 
79 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

I  couldn't  stand  it  to  stay  in  the  store, 
so  I  put  on  my  hat  and  went  home  and 
told  Ma.  "I  almost  wisht  I  hadn't  done 
it,"  I  says,  groanin'. 

"William,"  Ma  says,  "you  know  well 
enough  you  couldn't  have  done  nuthin' 
else.  I  don't  understand  these  things 
none  too  well.  'Tain't  a  woman's  business ; 
but  you  done  what  you  thought  was  right 
and  you  ain't  no  call  to  worry  about  do- 
in'  what  you  think  is  right."  That's  the 
way  Ma  always  talks.  You  ought  to 
know  Ma. 

'Still  there  ain't  no  use  denyin'  it.  I 
don't  ever  think  about  the  last  time  I  seen 
Little  Dug  without  feelin'  bad.  I  never 
could  be  hard  on  him  like  some  was  for 
that  Kansas-Nebraska  bill.  You  see,  fact 
was  he  thought  he  was  doin'  a  fine  thing 
when  he  got  up  that  bill.  He  seen  the 
South  wa'n't  satisfied,  and  he  thought 
he'd  fix  up  something  to  please  'em  and 

80 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

keep  'em  still  a  while — a  kind  of  Daniel 
Webster  he  was  tryin'  to  be,  makin'  a 
new  compromise. 

Douglas  got  so  busy  tryin'  to  please 
the  South  he  clean  lost  sight  of  what  the 
people  was  thinkin'  back  home.  I  reckon 
he  wan't  countin'  on  us  thinkin'  at  all 
— just  took  it  for  granted  we'd  believe 
what  he  told  us,  like  we'd  always  done. 
Surprisin'  how  long  you  can  fool  people 
with  the  talk  they  was  brought  up  on. 
Seems  sometimes  as  if  they  hated  to 
break  in  a  new  set  of  idees  as  bad  as  they 
do  new  boots.  I  reckon  that  was  what 
Douglas  was  countin'  on  back  there 
in  '58.  But  he  got  it  wrong  that  time. 
He  hadn't  reckoned  on  what  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  been  doin'.  Before  he  got 
through  them  debates,  Douglas  sus- 
spected  it  in  my  judgment.  He  knew 
that  even  if  he  did  git  to  the  Senate,  Lin 
coln  was  the  one  that  had  come  out  ahead. 
81 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

Queer  how  every  day  after  that  elec 
tion,  it  showed  up  more  and  more  that 
Lincoln  was  ahead.  Seemed  sometimes 
that  as  if  everybody  in  the  whole  North 
was  bent  on  hearin'  him  speak.  Why, 
they  sent  for  him  to  come  to  New  York 
and  Boston,  and  all  the  big  men  East  got 
to  writin'  to  him,  and  the  first  thing  I 
knowed  the  boys  was  talkin'  about  his 
bein'  President. 

Well,  I  thought  that  was  goin'  a  leetle 
far.  Just  as  I  told  you  t'other  day,  it 
seemed  to  me  almost  as  if  somebody  was 
pokin'  fun  at  him.  He  didn't  seem  to  me 
to  look  like  a  President.  Queer  how  long 
it  takes  a  man  to  find  out  that  there  ain't 
anything  in  the  world  so  important  as 
honest  thinkin'  and  actin',  and  that  when 
you've  found  a  man  that  never  lets  up 
'til  he  sees  clear  and  right,  and  then  hangs 
on  to  what  he  sees  like  a  dog  to  a  root, 
you  can't  make  a  mistake  in  tyin'  to  him. 

82 


BACK      THERE     IN     '58 

You  can  trust  him  anywhere.  Queer  how 
long  we  are  all  taken  in  by  high-soundin' 
talk  and  fashionable  ways  and  fine  prom 
ises.  But  don't  you  make  no  mistake, 
they  ain't  no  show  in  the  long  run  with 
honest  thinkin'. 


83 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 


KIND-HEARTED?     Mr.     Lin 
coln  kind-hearted? 

I  don't  believe  a  man  ever  lived 
who'd  rather  seen  everybody  happy  and 
peaceable  than  Abraham  Lincoln.  He 
never  could  stand  it  to  have  people  suf- 
ferin'  or  not  gettin'  what  they  wanted. 
Time  and  time  again  I've  seen  him  go 
taggin'  up  street  here  in  this  town  after 
some  youngster  that  was  blubberin'  be 
cause  he  couldn't  have  what  wa'n't  good 
for  him.  Seemed  as  if  he  couldn't  rest 
till  that  child  was  smilin'  again.  You  can 
go  all  over  Springfield  and  talk  to  the 
people  who  was  boys  and  girls  when  he 
lived  here  and  every  blamed  one  will  tell 
you  something  he  did  for  'em.  Every- 
87 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
body's  friend,  that's  what  he  was.     Jest 
as  natural  for  him  to  be  that  way  as  'twas 
for  him  to  eat  or  drink. 

Yes,  I  suppose  bein'  like  that  did  make 
the  war  harder  on  him.  But  he  had  horse 
sense  as  well  as  a  big  heart,  Mr.  Lincoln 
had.  He  knew  you  couldn't  have  war 
without  somebody  gettin'  hurt.  He  ex- 
pected  suffering  but  he  knew  'twas  his 
business  not  to  have  any  more  than  was 
necessary  and  to  take  care  of  what  come. 
And  them  was  two  things  that  wa'n't  done 
like  they  ought  to  'a'  been.  That  was 
what  worried  him. 

Seemed  as  if  hardly  anybody  at  the 
start  had  any  idea  of  how  important  'twas 
to  take  good  care  of  the  boys  and  keep  'em 
from  gettin'  sick  or  if  they  did  get  sick  to 
cure  'em.  I  remember  Leonard  Swett  was 
in  here  one  day  'long  back  in  '61  and  he 
says:  "Billy,  Mr.  Lincoln  knows  more 

88 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
about  how  the  soldiers  in  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  cook  flapjacks  than  you  do 
about  puttin'  up  quinine.  There  ain't  a 
blamed  thing  they  do  in  that  army  that  he 
ain't  interested  in.  I  went  down  to  camp 
with  him  one  day  and  I  never  see  an  old 
hunter  in  the  woods  quicker  to  spot  a  rab 
bit's  track  than  he  was  every  little  kink 
about  the  housekeepin'.  When  we  got 
back  to  town  he  just  sat  and  talked  and 
talked  about  the  way  the  soldiers  was  liv- 
in',  seemed  to  know  all  about  'em  every- 
ways:  where  they  was  short  of  shoes, 
where  the  rations  were  poor,  where  they 
had  camp-fever  worst ;  told  me  how  hard 
tack  was  made,  what  a  good  thing  quinine 
and  onions  are  to  have  handy, — best  cure 
for  diarrhea,  sore  feet,  homesickness, 
everything.  I  never  heard  anything  like 
it." 

Seemed  to  bother  Swett  a  little  that 
89 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  so  much  interest  in  all 
them  little  things,  but  I  said:  "  Don't  you 
worry,  Mr.  Swett,  Mr.  Lincoln's  got  the 
right  idee.  An  army  that  don't  have  its 
belly  and  feet  taken  care  of  ain't  goin'  to 
do  much  fightin',  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  got 
sense  enough  to  know  it.  He  knows  diar 
rhea's  a  blamed  sight  more  dangerous  to 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  than  Stonewall 
Jackson.  Trouble  so  far  has  been,  in  my 
judgment,  that  the  people  that  ought  to 
have  been  seein'  to  what  the  soldiers  was 
eatin'  and  drinkin'  and  whether  their  beds 
was  dry  and  their  bowels  movin',  was 
spendin'  their  time  polishin'  their  buttons 
and  shinin'  their  boots  for  parade." 

"What  I  don't  see,"  says  Swett,  "is 
how  he  learned  all  the  things  he  knows. 
They  ain't  the  kind  of  things  you'd  natu 
rally  think  a  president  of  the  United 
States  would  be  interestin'  himself  in." 
90 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
There  'twas, — same  old  fool  notion  that 
a  president  ought  to  sit  inside  somewhere 
and  think  about  the  Constitution.  I  used 
to  be  that  way — always  saw  a  president 
lookin'  like  that  old  picture  of  Thomas 
Jefferson  up  there  settin'  beside  a  parlor 
table  holdin'  a  roll  of  parchment  in  his 
hand,  and  Leonard  Swett  was  like  me  a 
little  in  spite  of  his  bein'  educated. 

Learned  it!  Think  of  Leonard  Swett 
askin'  that  with  all  his  chances  of  bein' 
with  Mr.  Lincoln!  Learned  it  just  as  he 
had  everything  by  bein'  so  dead  interested. 
He'd  learned  it  if  he  hadn't  been  president 
at  all,  if  he'd  just  been  loafin'  around 
Washington  doin'  nuthin'.  Greatest  hand 
to  take  notice  of  tilings.  I  tell  you  he'd 
made  a  great  war  correspondent.  Things 
he'd  'a'  seen!  And  the  way  he'd  'a'  told 
'em!  I  can  just  see  him  now  pumpin' 
everybody  that  had  been  to  the  front. 
91 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
Great  man  to  make  you  talk,  Mr.  Lin 
coln  was.  I've  heard  him  say  himself  that 
most  of  the  education  he  had  he'd  got  from 
people  who  thought  they  was  learnin' 
from  him. 

I  reckon  he  learned  a  lot  more  from  sol 
diers  about  how  the  armies  was  bein'  taken 
care  of  than  he  did  from  generals.  My 
brother  Isaac,  who  had  a  place  down  there 
addin'  up  figgers  or  somethin',  used  to  tell 
me  of  seein'  Mr.  Lincoln  stoppin'  'em  on 
the  street  and  out  around  the  White 
House  and  talkin'  to  'em.  Isaac  said 
'twa'n't  becomin'  in  the  President  of  the 
United  States  to  be  so  familiar  with  com 
mon  soldiers,  he  ought  to  keep  among  the 
generals  and  members  of  the  administra 
tion.  Isaac  always  reckoned  himself  a 
member  of  the  administration. 

"  More  than  that,"  says  Isaac,  "  it  ain't 
dignified  for  a  president  to  be  always  run- 
92 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
nin'  out  after  things  himself  instead  of 
sendin'  somebody.  He's  always  goin' 
over  to  the  telegraph  office  with  messages, 
and  settin'  down  by  the  operators  talkin' 
and  readin'  dispatches  and  waitin'  for  an 
swers.  One  day  he  came  right  up  to  my 
office  to  ask  me  to  look  up  the  record  of 
Johnnie  Banks,  old  Aunt  Sally  Banks' 
boy,  that  was  goin'  to  be  shot  for  desertion. 
Seemed  to  think  I'd  be  interested  be 
cause  he  came  from  Illinois — came  ri^LL 
up  there  instead  of  sendin'  for  me  to  go  to 
the  White  House  like  he  ought  to,  and 
when  I  took  what  I  found  over  to  him  and 
he  found  out  Johnnie  wa'n't  but  eighteen, 
he  put  on  his  hat  and  went  over  himself 
to  the  telegraph  office,  took  me  along,  and 
sent  a  message  that  I  saw,  savin', f  I  don't 
want  anybody  as  young  as  eighteen  to  be 
shot.3  And  that  night  he  went  back  and 
sent  another  message  askin'  if  they'd  re- 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
ceived  the  first — wasn't  satisfied  till  he 
knew  it  couldn't  happen.  There  wa'n't 
any  reason  why  he  should  spend  his  time 
that  way.  He  ought  to  give  orders  and 
let  other  folks  see  they're  carried  out. 
That's  what  I'd  do  if  I  was  president." 

That  riled  me.  "  I  reckon  there  ain't 
any  need  to  worry  about  that,,  Isaac,"  I 
says.  '  You  won't  never  be  president. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  got  too  many  folks  around 
him  now  that  don't  do  nuthin'  but  give 
orders.  That's  one  reason  he  has  to  do 
his  own  executin'." 

But  'twas  just  like  him  to  go  and  do  it 
himself.  So  interested  he  had  to  see  to  it. 
I've  heard  different  ones  tell  time  and  time 
again  that  whenever  he'd  pardoned  a  sol 
dier  he  couldn't  rest  till  he'd  get  word 
back  that  'twas  all  right.  Did  you  ever 
hear  about  that  Vermont  boy  in  McClel- 

lan's  army,  sentenced  to  be  shot  along  at 
94 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
the  start  for  sleepin'  on  his  post.  'Twas 
when  they  was  camped  over  in  Virginia 
right  near  Washington.  Mr.  Lincoln 
didn't  know  about  it  till  late  and  when  he 
heard  the  story  he  telegraphed  down  not 
to  do  it.  Then  he  telegraphed  askin'  if 
they'd  got  his  orders  and  when  he  didn't 
get  an  answer  what  does  he  do  hut  get  in 
his  carriage  and  drive  himself  ten  miles  to 
camp  to  see  that  they  didn't  do  it.  Now 
that's  what  I  call  bein'  a  real  president. 
That's  executin'. 

Well,  as  I  was  sayin',  Tie  understood 
the  importance  of  a  lot  of  tilings  them 
young  officers  and  some  of  the  old  ones 
didn't  see  at  all,  and  he  knew  where  to  get 
the  truth  about  'em — went  right  to  the  sol 
diers  for  it.  They  was  just  like  the  folks 
he  was  used  to,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the 
greatest  hand  for  folks — just  plain  com 
mon  folks — you  ever  see.  He  liked  'em, 
95 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
never  forgot  'em,  just  natural  nice  to 


'em. 


It  used  to  rile  old  Judge  Davis  a  lot 
when  they  was  travelin'  the  circuit,  the  way 
Mr.  Lincoln  never  made  no  difference  be 
tween  lawyers  and  common  folks.  I  heard 
Judge  Logan  tellin'  in  here  one  day  about 
their  all  bein'  in  the  tavern  up  to  Bloom- 
ington  one  day.  In  those  times  there  was 
just  one  big  table  for  everybody.  The 
lawyers  and  big  bugs  always  set  at  one 
end  and  the  teamsters  and  farmers  at  the 
other.  Mr.  Lincoln  used  to  like  to  get 
down  among  the  workin'  folks  and  get  the 
news.  Reckon  he  got  kinda  tired  hearin' 
discussin'  goin'  on  all  the  time.  Liked  to 
hear  about  the  crops  and  politics  and  folks 
he  knew. 

This  time  he  was  down  among  'em,  and 
Judge  Davis,  who  always  wanted  Lincoln 
right  under  his  nose,  calls  out:  "  Come  up 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
here,  Mr.  Lincoln;  here's  where  you  be 
long."    And  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  looked  kinda 
funny  at  the  Judge  and  he  says: 

"  Got  anything  better  to  eat  up  there, 
Judge?"  And  everybody  tee-heed. 

Feelin'  as  he  did  about  folks  I  could 
see  how  it  would  go  ag'in  the  grain  for 
the  boys  in  the  army  to  have  a  harder  time 
than  was  necessary.  He'd  argue  that  they 
was  doin'  the  fightin'  and  ought  to  have 
the  care.  He'd  feel  a  good  deal  worse 
about  their  bein'  neglected  than  he  would 
about  the  things  he  knew  beforehand  he 
had  to  stand,  like  woundin'  and  killin'. 
And  'twas  just  that  way  so  I  found  out 
the  time  I  was  down  to  Washington  visit- 
in'  him. 

I  told  you,  didn't  I,  how  I  went  up  to 
the  Soldiers'  Home  and  how  we  walked 
out  that  night  and  sat  and  talked  till  al 
most  mornin'?    'Twas  a  clear  night  with 
97 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
lots  of  stars  and  Washington  looked 
mighty  pretty  lyin'  there  still  and  white. 
Mr.  Lincoln  pointed  out  the  Capitol  and 
the  White  House  and  Arlington  and  the 
Long  Bridge,  showin'  me  the  lay  of  the 
land. 

"  And  it's  nuthin'  but  one  big  hospital, 
Billy,"  he  said  after  a  while.  "You 
wouldn't  think,  would  you,  lookin'  down 
on  it  so  peaceful  and  quiet,  that  there's 
50,000  sick  and  wounded  soldiers  there? 
Only  Almighty  God  knows  how  many  of 
'em  are  dyin'  this  minute ;  only  Almighty 
God  knows  how  many  are  sufferin'  so 
they're  prayin'  to  die.  They  are  comin' 
to  us  every  day  now — have  been  ever  since 
the  Wilderness,  50,000  here  and  150,000 
scattered  over  the  country.  There's  a 
crawlin'  line  of  sick  and  wounded  all  the 
way  from  here  to  Petersburg  to-night. 
There's  a  line  from  Georgia  to  Chatta- 
98 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
nooga — Sherman's  men.  You  can't  put 
your  finger  on  a  spot  in  the  whole  North 
that  ain't  got  a  crippled  or  fever-struck 
soldier  in  it.  There  were  days  in  May, 
just  after  the  Wilderness,  when  Mary  and 
I  used  to  drive  the  carriage  along  lines  of 
ambulances  which  stretched  from  the 
docks  to  the  hospitals,  one,  two  miles. 
It  was  a  thing  to  tear  your  heart  out  to 
see  them.  They  brought  them  from  the 
field  just  as  they  picked  them  up,  with 
horrible,  gaping,  undressed  wounds,  blood 
and  dust  and  powder  caked  over  them — 
eaten  by  flies  and  mosquitoes.  They'd 
been  piled  like  cord  wood  on  flat  cars  and 
transports.  Sometimes  they  didn't  get  a 
drink  until  they  were  distributed  here. 
Often  when  it  was  cold  they  had  no  blan 
ket,  when  it  was  hot  they  had  no  shade. 
That  was  nearly  four  months  ago,  and 
still  they  come.  Night  after  night  as  I 
99 


FATHER   ABRAHAM 
drive  up  here  from  the  White  House  I 
pass  twenty,  thirty,  forty  ambulances  in 
a  row  distributin'  the  wounded  and  sick 
from  Grant's  army. 

"  Think  what  it  means!  It  means  that 
boys  like  you  and  me  were,  not  so  long 
ago,  have  stood  up  and  shot  each  other 
down — have  trampled  over  each  other  and 
have  left  each  other  wounded  and  bleed 
ing  on  the  ground,  in  the  rain  or  the  heat, 
nobody  to  give  'em  a  drink  or  to  say  a 
kind  word.  Nothing  but  darkness  and 
blood  and  groans  and  torture.  Some 
times  I  can't  believe  it's  true.  Boys  from 
Illinois  where  I  live,  shootin'  boys  from 
Kentucky  where  I  was  born!  It's  only 
when  I  see  them  comin'  in  I  realize  it — 
boat  load  after  boat  load,  wagon  load 
after  wagon  load.  It  seemed  sometimes 
after  Bull  Run  and  Fredericksburg  and 

Chancellorsville  if  they  didn't  stopunload- 

100 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
in'  'em  I'd  go  plumb  crazy.    But  still  they 
come,  and  only  God  knows  when  they'll 
stop.    They  say  hell's  like  war,  Billy.    If 
'tis,— I'm  glad  I  ain't  Satan." 

Of  course  I  tried  to  cheer  him  up.  I'd 
been  around  visitin'  the  Illinois  boys  in 
the  hospitals  that  day  and  I  just  lit  in  and 
told  him  how  comfortable  I'd  found  'em 
and  how  chipper  most  of  them  seemed. 
"  You'd  think  'twas  fun  to  be  in  the  hos 
pital  to  see  some  of  'em,  Mr.  Lincoln," 
I  said.  "  What  do  you  suppose  old  Tom 
Blodgett  was  doin'?  Settin'  up  darnin' 
his  socks.  Yes,  sir,  insisted  on  doin'  it 
himself.  Said  them  socks  had  fit  all  the 
way  from  Washington  to  Richmond. 
They'd  stood  by  him  and  he  was  goin'  to 
stand  by  them.  Goin'  to  dress  their 
wounds  as  good  as  the  doctor  had  his. 
Never  saw  anything  so  funny  as  that  big 
feller  propped  up  there  tryin'  to  darn  like 
101 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
he'd  seen  his  mother  do  and  all  the  time 
makin'  fun.     All  the  boys  around  were 
laffin'  at  him — called  him  the  sock  doctor. 

"  And  things  were  so  clean  and  white 
and  pretty  and  the  women  were  runnin' 
around  just  like  home." 

"  God  bless  'em,"  he  said.  "  I  don't 
know  what  we'd  'a'  done  if  it  hadn't  been 
for  the  way  the  women  have  taken  hold. 
Come  down  here  willin5  to  do  anything; 
women  that  never  saw  a  cut  finger  before, 
will  stand  over  a  wound  so  terrible  men 
will  faint  at  the  sight  of  it.  I've  known 
of  women  spendin'  whole  nights  on  a  bat 
tlefield  huntin'  for  somebody  they'd  lost 
and  stoppin'  as  they  went  to  give  water 
and  take  messages.  I've  known  'em  to 
work  steady  for  three  days  and  nights 
without  a  wink  of  sleep  down  at  the  front 
after  a  battle,  takin'  care  of  the  wounded. 
Here  in  Washington  you  can't  stop  'em 

102 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
as  long  as  they  can  see  a  thing  to  be  done. 
At  home  they're  supportin'  the  families 
and  workin'  day  and  night  to  help  us. 
They  give  their  husbands  and  their  boys 
and  then  themselves.  God  bless  the  wo 
men,  Billy.  We  can't  save  the  Union 
without  'em. 

"  It  makes  a  difference  to  the  boys  in  a 
hospital  havin'  'em.  People  don't  real 
ize  how  young  this  army  is.  Half  the 
wounded  here  in  Washington  to-day  are 
children — not  twenty  yet — lots  of  'em 
under  eighteen.  Children  who  never  went 
to  sleep  in  their  lives  before  they  went 
into  the  army  without  kissin'  their  mothers 
good-night.  You  take  such  a  boy  as  that 
and  let  him  lie  in  camp  a  few  months 
gettin'  more  and  more  tired  of  it  and  he 
gets  homesick — plain  homesick — he  wants 
Iris  mother.  Perhaps  he  don't  know 
what's  the  matter  and  he  wouldn't  admit 

103 


FATHER   ABRAHAM 
it  if  he  did.     First  thing  you  know  he's 
in  the  hospital  with  camp  fever,  or  he  gets 
wounded.    I  tell  you  a  woman  looks  good 
to  him. 

"  It's  a  queer  thing  to  say,  Billy,  but  I 
get  real  comfort  out  of  the  hospitals. 
When  you  know  what  the  wounded  have 
been  through — how  they  have  laid  on  the 
battlefields  for  hours  and  hours  uncared 
for,  how  they've  suffered  bein'  hauled  uj 
here,  there  ain't  nuthin'  consoles  you  like 
knowin'  that  their  wounds  have  been 
dressed  and  that  they  are  clean  and  fed, 
and  looked  after.  Then  they  are  so  thank 
ful  to  be  here — to  have  some  one  to  see  to 
'em.  I  remember  one  day  a  boy  who  had 
been  all  shot  up  but  was  gettin'  better 
sayin'  to  me :  '  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  can't  sleep 
nights  thinkin'  how  comfortable  I  am.' 
It's  so  good  to  find  'em  realizin'  that 
everybody  cares — the  whole  country. 

104 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
People  come  and  read  to  'em  and  write 
letters  for  'em  and  bring  'em  things. 
Why,  they  have  real  good  times  at  some 
of  the  places.  Down  to  Armory  Square 
Bliss  has  got  a  melodeon  and  they  have 
concerts  sometimes,  and  there  are  flags 
up  and  flowers  in  the  windows.  I  got 
some  flower  seeds  last  summer  for  Bliss 
to  plant  outside,  but  they  turned  out  to 
be  lettuce  and  onions.  The  boys  ate  'em 
and  you  ought  to  heard  'em  laugh  about 
my  flowers.  I  tell  you  it  makes  me  happy 
when  I  go  around  and  find  the  poor  fel 
lows  smilin'  up  at  me  and  sayin' :  '  You're 
takin'  good  care  of  us,  Mr.  Lincoln,'  and 
maybe  crack  a  joke. 

'  They  take  it  all  so  natural,  trampin' 
and  fightin'  and  dyin'.  It's  a  wonderful 
army — wonderful!  You  couldn't  believe 
that  boys  that  back  home  didn't  ever  have 
a  serious  thought  in  their  heads  could  ever 

105 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
Ke  so  dead  set  as  they  be  about  an  idee. 
Think  of  it!  A  million  men  are  lookin' 
up  at  these  stars  to-night,  a  million  men 
ready  to  die  for  the  Union  to-morrow  if 
it's  got  to  be  done  to  save  it!  I  tell  you, 
it  shows  what's  in  'em.  They're  all  the 
same,  young  or  old — the  Union's  got  to 
be  saved !  Of  course  you'd  expect  it  more 
of  the  old  ones,  and  we've  got  some  old 
ones,  older  than  the  law  allows,  too. 
'Tain't  only  the  youngsters  who  have  lied 
themselves  into  the  service.  Only  to-day 
a  Congressman  was  in  tellin'  me  about 
one  of  his  constituents,  said  he  was  over 
sixty-five  and  white-haired  when  he  first 
enlisted.  They  refused  him  of  course, 
and  I'll  be  blamed  if  the  old  fellow  didn't 
dye  his  hair  black  and  change  his  name, 
and  when  they  asked  him  his  age,  said: 
*  Rising  thirty-five,'  and  he's  been  fightin' 
good  for  two  years  and  now  they'd  found 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
him  out.     The  Congressman  asked  me 
what  he  ought  to  do.    I  told  him  if  'twas 
me  I'd  keep  him  in  hair  dye." 

We  was  still  a  while  and  then  Mr.  Lin 
coln  began  talkin',  more  to  himself  than  to 
me. 

"  A  million  men,  a  mighty  host — and 
one  word  of  mine  would  bring  the  million 
sleeping  boys  to  their  feet — send  them 
without  a  word  to  their  guns — they  would 
fall  in  rank — regiment  on  regiment,  bri 
gade  on  brigade,  corps  on  corps,  a  word 
more  and  they  would  march  steady,  quiet, 
a  million  men  in  step  straight  ahead,  over 
fields,  through  forests,  across  rivers. 
Nothing  could  stop  them — cannons  might 
tear  holes  in  their  ranks,  and  they  would 
fill  them  up,  a  half  million  might  be  bled 
out  of  them,  and  a  word  of  mine  would 
bring  a  half  million  more  to  fill  their  place. 
107 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
Oh,  God,  my  God,"  he  groaned,  under  his 
breath,  "  what  am  I  that  Thou  shouldst 
ask  this  of  me!  What  am  I  that  Thou 
shouldst  trust  me  so!" 

Well,  I  just  dropped  my  head  in  my 
hands — seemed  as  if  I  oughten  to  look  at 
him— and  the  next  thing  I  knew  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  arm  was  over  my  shoulder  and  he 
was  saying  in  that  smilin'  kind  of  voice  he 
had:  "  Don't  mind  me,  Billy.  The  Lord 
generally  knows  what  He's  about  and  He 
can  get  rid  of  me  quick  enough  if  He  sees 
I  ain't  doin'  the  job — quicker  than  the 
Copperheads  can." 

Just  like  him  to  change  so.  Didn't 
want  anybody  to  feel  bad.  But  I  never 
forgot  that,  and  many  a  time  in  my  sleep 
I've  heard  Abraham  Lincoln's  voice  cry 
ing  out :  "  Oh,  God,  my  God,  what  am  I 
that  Thou  shouldst  ask  this  of  me! "  and 
I've  groaned  to  think  how  often  through 

108 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
them  four  awful  years  he  must  have  lifted 
up  his  face  with  that  look  on  it  and  asked 
the  Lord  what  in  the  world  he  was  doing 
that  thing  for. 

"After  aU,  Billy,"  he  went  on,  "it's 
surprisin'  what  a  happy  army  it  is.  In 
spite  of  bein'  so  dead  in  earnest  and  havin' 
so  much  trouble  of  one  kind  and  another, 
seems  sometimes  as  if  you  couldn't  put 
'em  anywhere  that  they  wouldn't  scare  up 
some  fun.  Greatest  chaps  to  sing  on  the 
march,  to  cut  up  capers  and  play  tricks 
you  ever  saw.  I  reckon  the  army's  a  little 
like  me,  it  couldn't  do  its  job  if  it  didn't 
get  a  good  laugh  now  and  then — sort  o' 
clears  up  the  air  when  things  are  lookin' 
blue.  Anyhow  the  boys  are  always  get- 
tin'  themselves  into  trouble  b/  their 
pranks.  Jokin'  fills  the  guard-house  as 
often  as  drunkenness  or  laziness.  That 
and  their  bein'  so  sassy.  A  lot  of  'em 
109 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
think  they  know  just  as  much  as  the  offi 
cers  do,  and  I  reckon  they're  right  pretty 
often.  It  takes  some  time  to  learn  that 
it  ain't  good  for  the  service  for  them  to 
be  speakin'  their  minds  too  free.  At  the 
start  they  did  it  pretty  often — do  now 
sometimes.  Why,  only  just  this  week 
Stanton  told  me  about  a  sergeant,  who 
one  day  when  the  commanding  officer 
was  relieving  his  mind  by  swearing  at 
his  men,  stepped  right  out  of  the  ranks 
and  reproved  him  and  said  he  was  break 
ing  the  law  of  God.  Well,  they  clapped 
him  in  the  guard-house  and  now  they 
want  to  punish  him  harder — say  he  ain't 
penitent — keeps  disturbin'  the  guard 
house  by  prayin'  at  the  top  of  his  voice 
for  that  officer.  I  told  Stanton  we  better 
not  interfere,  that  there  wasn't  nothing 
in  the  regulations  against  a  man's  prayin' 
for  his  officers. 

110 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
"  Yes,  it's  a  funny  army.  There  don't 
seem  to  be  but  one  thing  that  discourages 
it,  and  that's  not  fightin'.  Keep  'em  still 
in  camp  where  you'd  think  they'd  be  com 
fortable  and  they  go  to  pieces  every  time. 
It's  when  they're  lyin'  still  we  have  the 
worst  camp  fever  and  the  most  deserters. 
Keep  'em  on  the  move,  let  'em  think 
they're  goin'  to  have  a  fight  and  they  perk 
up  right  off. 

"  We  can't  fail  with  men  like  that. 
Make  all  the  mistakes  we  can,  they'll 
make  up  for  'em.  The  hope  of  this  war  is 
in  the  common  soldiers,  not  in  the  generals 
— not  in  the  War  Department,  not  in  me. 
It's  in  the  boys.  Sometimes  it  seems  to 
me  that  nobody  sees  it  quite  right.  It's  in 
war  as  it  is  in  life — a  whole  raft  of  men 
work  day  and  night  and  sweat  and  die  to 
get  in  the  crops  and  mine  the  ore  and 
build  the  towns  and  sail  the  seas.  They 
in 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
make  the  wealth  but  they  get  mighty  little 
of  it.  We  ain't  got  our  values  of  men's 
work  figured  out  right  yet — the  value  of 
the  man  that  gives  orders  and  of  the  man 
that  takes  'em.  I  hear  people  talkin'  as  if 
the  history  of  a  battle  was  what  the  gen 
erals  did.  I  can't  help  thinkin'  that  the 
history  of  this  war  is  in  the  knapsack  of 
the  common  soldier.  He's  makin'  that 
history  just  like  the  farmers  are  makin' 
the  wealth.  We  fellows  at  the  top  are 
only  usin'  what  they  make. 

"  At  any  rate  that's  the  way  I  see  it, 
and  I've  tried  hard  ever  since  I've  been 
down  here  to  do  all  I  could  for  the  boys. 
I  know  lots  of  officers  think  I  peek 
around  camp  too  much,  think  'tain't  good 
for  discipline.  But  I've  always  felt  I 
ought  to  know  how  they  was  livin'  and 
there  didn't  seem  to  be  no  other  sure  way 
of  findin'  out.  Officers  ain't  always  good 

112 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
housekeepers,  and  I  kinda  felt  I'd  got  to 
keep  my  eye  on  the  cupboard. 

"  I  reckon  Stanton  thinks  I've  inter 
fered  too  much,  but  there's  been  more'n 
enough  trouble  to  go  around  in  this  war, 
and  the  only  hope  was  helpin'  where  you 
could.  But  'tain't  much  one  can  do.  I 
can  no  more  help  every  soldier  that  comes 
to  me  in  trouble  than  I  can  dip  all  the 
water  out  of  the  Potomac  with  a  teaspoon. 

"  Then  there's  that  pardoning  business. 
Every  now  and  then  I  have  to  fix  it  up 
with  Stanton  or  some  officer  for  pardon 
ing  so  many  boys.  I  suppose  it's  pretty 
hard  for  them  not  to  have  all  their  rules 
lived  up  to.  They've  worked  out  a  lot  of 
laws  to  govern  this  army,  and  I  s'pose 
it's  natural  enough  for  'em  to  think  the 
most  important  thing  in  the  world  is 
havin'  'em  obeyed.  They've  got  it  fixed 
so  the  boys  do  everything  accordin'  to 

113 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
regulations.  They  won't  even  let  'em  die 
of  something  that  ain't  on  the  list — 
got  to  die  accordin'  to  the  regulations. 
But  by  jingo,  Billy,  I  ain't  goin'  to  have 
boys  shot  accordin'  to  no  dumb  regula 
tions!  I  ain't  goin'  to  have  a  butcher's 
day  every  Friday  in  the  army  if  I  can 
help  it.  It's  so  what  they  say  about  me, 
that  I'm  always  lookin'  for  an  excuse  to 
pardon  somebody.  I  do  it  every  time  I 
can  find  a  reason.  When  they're  young 
and  when  they're  green  or  when  they've 
been  worked  on  by  Copperheads  or  when 
they've  got  disgusted  lyin'  still  and  come 
to  think  we  ain't  doin'  our  job — when  I 
see  that  I  ain't  goin'  to  have  'em  shot. 
And  then  there's  my  leg  cases.  I've  got  a 
drawerful.  They  make  Holt  maddest — 
says  he  ain't  any  use  for  cowards.  Well, 
generally  speakin'  I  ain't,  but  I  ain't 
sure  what  I'd  do  if  I  was  standin'  in  front 

114 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
of  a  gun,  and  more'n  that  as  I  told  Holt 
if  Almighty   God  gives   a  man  a  cow 
ardly    pair    of    legs    how    can   he    help 
their  running  away  with  him? 

"  You  can't  make  me  believe  it's  good 
policy  to  shoot  these  soldiers,  anyhow. 
Seems  to  me  one  thing  we've  never  taken 
into  account  as  we  ought  to  is  that  this  is 
a  volunteer  army.  These  men  came  down 
here  to  put  an  end  to  this  rebellion  and 
not  to  get  trained  as  soldiers.  They  just 
dropped  the  work  they  was  doin'  right 
where  it  was — never  stopped  to  fix  up 
things  to  be  away  long.  Why,  we've  got  a 
little  minister  at  the  head  of  one  company 
that  was  preachin'  when  he  heard  the  news 
of  Bull  Run.  He  shut  up  his  Bible,  told 
the  congregation  what  had  happened,  and 
said :  '  Brethren,  I  reckon  it's  time  for  us 
to  adjourn  this  meetin'  and  go  home  and 
drill,'  and  they  did  it,  and  now  they're 

115 


FATHER   ABRAHAM 
down  with  Grant.    When  the  war's  over 
that  man  will  go  back  and  finish  that 
sermon. 

"  That's  the  way  with  most  of  'em. 
You  can't  treat  such  an  army  like  you 
would  one  that  had  been  brought  up  to 
soljerin'  as  a  business.  They'll  take  dis 
cipline  enough  to  fight,  but  they  don't 
take  any  stock  in  it  as  a  means  of  earnin' 
a  livin'. 

"  More'n  that  they've  got  their  own 
ideas  about  politics  and  military  tactics 
and  mighty  clear  ideas  about  all  of  us  that 
are  runnin'  things.  You  can't  fool  'em  on 
an  officer.  They  know  when  one  ain't  fit 
to  command,  and  time  and  time  again 
they've  pestered  a  coward  or  a  braggart 
or  a  bully  out  of  the  service.  An  officer 
who  does  his  job  best  he  can,  even  if  he 
ain't  very  smart,  just  honest  and  faithful, 
they'll  stand  by  and  help.  If  he's  a  big 
116 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
one,  a  real  big  man,  they  can't  do  enough 
for  him.  Take  the  way  they  feel  about 
Thomas,  the  store  they  set  by  him.  I 
met  a  boy  on  crutches  out  by  the  White 
House  the  other  day  and  asked  him  where 
he  got  wounded.  He  told  me  about  the 
place  they  held.  '  Pretty  hot,  wasn't  it?  ' 
I  said.  *  Yes,  but  Old  Pap  put  us  there 
and  he  wouldn't  'a'  done  it  if  he  hadn't 
known  we  could  'a'  held  it.'  No  more 
question  '  Old  Pap  '  than  they  would  God 
Almighty.  But  if  it  had  been  some  gen 
erals  they'd  skedaddled. 

"  They  ain't  never  made  any  mistake 
about  me  just  because  I'm  president.  A 
while  after  Bull  Run  I  met  a  boy  out  on 
the  street  here  on  crutches,  thin  and  white, 
and  I  stopped  to  ask  him  about  how  he 
got  hurt.  Well,  Billy,  he  looked  at  me 
hard  as  nails,  and  he  says :  '  Be  you  Abe 
Lincoln?'  And  I  said,  VYes.'  'Well,' 
117 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
he  says,  '  all  I've  got  to  say  is  you  don't 
know  your  job.  I  enlisted  glad  enough  to 
do  my  part  and  I've  done  it,  but  you  ain't 
done  yourn.  You  promised  to  feed  me, 
and  I  marched  three  days  at  the  begin 
ning  of  these  troubles  without  anything  to 
eat  but  hardtack  and  two  chunks  of  salt 
pork — no  bread,  no  coffee — and  what  I 
did  get  wasn't  regular.  They  got  us  up 
one  mornin'  and  marched  us  ten  miles 
without  breakfast.  Do  you  call  that  pro- 
vidin'  for  an  army?  And  they  sent  us 
down  to  fight  the  Rebs  at  Bull  Run,  and 
when  we  was  doin'  our  best  and  holdin' 
'em — I  tell  you,  holdin'  'em — they  told  us 
to  fall  back.  I  swore  I  wouldn't — I 
hadn't  come  down  there  for  that.  They 
made  me — rode  me  down.  I  got  struck 
— struck  in  the  back.  Struck  in  the  back 
and  they  left  me  there — never  came  for 
me,  never  gave  me  a  drink  and  I  dyin'  of 

118 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
thirst.  I  crawled  five  miles  for  water,  and 
I'd  be  dead  and  rottin'  in  Virginia  to-day 
if  a  teamster  hadn't  picked  me  up  and 
brought  me  to  this  town  and  found  an  old 
darkey  to  take  care  of  me.  You  ain't 
doin'  your  job,  Abe  Lincoln;  you  won't 
win  this  war  until  you  learn  to  take  care 
of  the  soldiers.' 

"  I  couldn't  say  a  thing.  It  was  true. 
It's  been  true  all  the  time.  It's  true  to 
day.  We  ain't  takin'  care  of  the  soldiers 
like  we  ought. 

'  You  don't  suppose  such  men  are  goin' 
to  accept  the  best  lot  of  regulations  ever 
made  without  askin'  questions?  Not  a 
bit  of  it.  They  know  when  things  are 
right  and  when  they're  not.  When  they 
see  a  man  who  they  know  is  nothing  but 
a  boy  or  one  they  know's  bein'  eat  up  with 
homesickness  or  one  whose  term  is  out, 
and  ought  to  be  let  go,  throwing  every- 
119 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
thing  over  and  desertin',  it  don't  make 
them  any  better  soldiers  to  have  us  shoot 
him.  Makes  'em  worse  in  my  judgment, 
makes  'em  think  we  don't  understand. 
Anyhow,  discipline  or  no  discipline,  I 
ain't  goin'  to  have  any  more  of  it  than  I 
can  help.  It  ain't  good  common  sense. 

"  You  can't  run  this  army  altogether  as 
if  'twas  a  machine.  It  ain't.  It's  a  peo 
ple's  army.  It  offered  itself.  It  has 
come  down  here  to  fight  this  thing  out — 
just  as  it  would  go  to  the  polls.  It  is 
greater  than  its  generals,  greater  than  the 
administration.  We  are  created  to  care 
for  it  and  lead  it.  It  is  not  created  for 
us.  Every  day  the  war  has  lasted  I've 
felt  this  army  growin'  in  power  and  deter 
mination.  I've  felt  its  hand  on  me,  guid 
ing,  compelling,  threatening,  upholding 
me,  felt  its  distrust  and  its  trust,  its  blame 
and  its  love.  I've  felt  its  patience  and  its 

120 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
sympathy.  The  greatest  comfort  I  get  is 
when  sometimes  I  feel  as  if  mebbe  the 
army  understood  what  I  was  tryin'  to  do 
whether  Greeley  did  or  not.  They  under 
stood  because  it's  their  war.  Why,  we 
might  fail,  every  one  of  us,  and  this  war 
would  go  on.  The  army  would  find 
its  leaders  like  they  say  the  old  Roman 
armies  sometimes  did  and  would  finish 
the  fight. 

"  I  tell  you,  Billy,  there  ain't  nuthin' 
that's  ever  happened  in  the  world  so  far 
as  I  know  that  gives  one  such  faith  in  the 
people  as  this  army  and  the  way  it  acts. 
There's  been  times,  I  ain't  denyin',  when 
I  didn't  know  but  the  war  was  goin'  to  be 
too  much  for  us,  times  when  I  thought 
that  mebbe  a  republic  like  this  couldn't 
stand  such  a  strain.  It's  the  kind  of  gov 
ernment  we've  got  that's  bein'  tested  in 
this  war,  government  by  the  people,  and 
121 


FATHER    ABRAHAM 
it's  the  People's  Army  that  makes  me  cer 
tain  it  can't  be  upset." 

I  tell  you  it  done  me  good  to  see  him 
settin'  up  straight  there  talkin'  so  proud 
and  confident,  and  as  I  was  watchin'  him 
there  popped  into  my  head  some  words 
from  a  song  I'd  heard  the  soldiers  sing: 

We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred 

thousand  more — 
From  Mississippi's  winding  stream  and  from  New 

England's  shore. 

You  have  called  us  and  we're  coming.  By  Rich 
mond's  bloody  tide 

To  lay  us  down,  for  Freedom's  sake,  our  brothers' 
bones  beside; 

Six   hundred  thousand  loyal  men   and   true   have 

gone  before — 
We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred 

thousand  more. 

122 


FATHER  ABRAHAM 
That  was  it.  That  was  what  he  was, 
the  Father  of  the  Army,  Father  Abra 
ham,  and  somehow  the  soldiers  had  found 
it  out.  Curious  how  a  lot  of  people  who 
never  see  a  man  in  their  lives  will  come  to 
understand  him  exact. 


123 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 


U^T    7"ES,  sir;  he  was  what  I  call  a 
I        godly  man.     Fact  is,  I  never 
"*"       knew  anybody  I   felt  so  sure 
would  walk  straight  into  Heaven,  every 
body  w7elcomin'   him,   nobody  fussin'   or 
fumin'  about  his  bein'  let  in  as  Abraham 
Lincoln." 

Billy  was  tilted  back  in  a  worn  high-back 
Windsor,  I  seated  properly  in  his  famous 
"Lincoln's  chair,"  a  seat  too  revered  for 
anybody  to  stand  on  two  legs.  It  was  a 
snowy  blusterly  day  and  the  talk  had  run 
on  uninterruptedly  from  the  weather  to 
the  campaign.  (The  year  was  1896,  and 
Billy,  being  a  gold  Democrat,  was  gloomy 
over  politics.)  We  had  finally  arrived, 
127 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
as  we  always  did  when  we  met,  at  "when 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  alive,"  and  Billy  had 
been    dwelling    lovingly    on    his    great 
friend's  gentleness,  goodness,  honesty. 

"You  know  I  never  knew  anybody,"  he 
went  on,  "who  seemed  to  me  more  inter 
ested  in  God,  more  curious  about  Him, 
more  anxious  to  find  out  what  He  was 
drivin'  at  in  the  world,  than  Mr.  Lincoln. 
I  reckon  he  was  allus  that  way.  There 
ain't  any  doubt  that  from  the  time  he  was 
a  little  shaver  he  grabbed  on  to  everything 
that  came  his  way — wouldn't  let  it  go  'til 
he  had  it  worked  out,  fixed  in  his  mind 
so  he  understood  it,  and  could  tell  it  the 
way  he  saw  it.  Same  about  religion  as 
everything  else.  Of  course  he  didn't  get 
no  religious  teachin'  like  youngsters  have 
nowadays — Sunday  schools  and  church 
regular  every  Sunday — lessons  all  worked 
out,  and  all  kinds  of  books  to  explain  'em. 
Still  I  ain't  sure  but  what  they  give  so 

128 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
many  helps  now,  the  Bible  don't  get  much 
show. 

"It  wa'n't  so  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a 
boy.  No,  sir.  Bible  was  the  whole  thing, 
and  there  ain't  any  doubt  he  knew  it  pretty 
near  by  heart,  knew  it  well  before  he  ever 
could  read,  for  Lincoln  had  a  good  mother, 
that's  sure,  the  kind  that  wanted  more 
than  anything  else  in  the  world  to  have 
her  boy  grow  up  to  be  a  good  man,  and 
she  did  all  she  knew  how  to  teach  him 
right. 

"I  remember  hearin'  him  say  once  how 
she  used  to  tell  him  Bible  stories,  teach 
him  verses — always  quotin'  'em.  I  can 
see  him  now  sprawlin'  on  the  floor  in  front 
of  the  fire  listenin'  to  Nancy  Hanks  tellin' 
him  about  Moses  and  Jacob  and  Noah 
and  all  those  old  fellows,  tellin'  him  about 
Jesus  and  his  dyin'  on  the  cross.  I  tell 
you  that  took  hold  of  a  little  shaver,  livin' 
like  he  did,  remote  and  not  havin'  many 

129 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
books  or  places  to  go.     Filled  you  chuck 
full  of  wonder  and  mystery,  made  you  lie 
awake  nights,  and  sometimes  swelled  you 
all  up,  wantin'  to  be  good. 

"Must  have  come  mighty  hard  on  him 
havin'  her  die.  Think  of  a  little  codger 
like  him  seein'  his  mother  lyin'  dead  in 
that  shack  of  theirs,  seein'  Tom  Lincoln 
holdin'  his  head  and  wonderin'  what  he'd 
do  now.  Poor  little  tad!  He  must  have 
crept  up  and  looked  at  her,  and  gone  out 
and  throwed  himself  on  the  ground  and 
cried  himself  out.  Hard  thing  for  a  boy 
of  nine  to  lose  his  mother,  specially  in 
such  a  place  as  they  lived  in. 

"I  don't  see  how  he  could  get  much 
comfort  out  of  what  they  taught  about 
her  dyin',  sayin'  it  was  God's  will,  and 
hintin'  that  if  you'd  been  what  you  ought 
to  be  it  wouldn't  have  happened,  never 
told  a  man  that  if  he  let  a  woman  work 
herself  to  death  it  was  his  doin's  she  died 

130 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
< — not  God's  will  at  all — God's  will  she 
should  live  and  be  happy  and  make  him 
happy. 

"But  I  must  say  Mr.  Lincoln  had  luck 
in  the  step-mother  he  got.  If  there  ever 
was  a  good  woman,  it  was  Sarah  Johns 
ton,  and  she  certain  did  her  duty  by  Tom 
Lincoln's  children.  'Twa'n't  so  easy  either, 
poor  as  he  was,  the  kind  that  never  really 
got  a  hold  on  anything.  Sarah  Johnston 
did  her  part — teachin'  Mr.  Lincoln  just  as 
his  own  mother  would,  and  just  as  anxious 
as  she'd  been  to  have  him  grow  up  a  good 
man.  I  tell  you  she  was  proud  of  him 
when  he  got  to  be  President.  I  remember 
seein'  her  back  in  ?62  or  '3  on  the  farm  Mr. 
Lincoln  gave  her,  little  ways  out  of 
Charleston.  One  of  the  last  things  Mr. 
Lincoln  did  before  he  went  to  Washing 
ton  was  to  go  down  there  and  see  his  step 
mother.  He  knew  better  than  anybody 
what  she'd  done  for  him. 

131 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
"Yes,  sir,  the  best  religious  teachin'  Mr. 
Lincoln  ever  got  was  from  Tom  Lincoln's 
two  wives.  It  was  the  kind  that  went 
deep  and  stuck,  because  he  saw  'em  livin' 
it  every  day,  practicin'  it  on  him  and  his 
sister  and  his  father  and  the  neighbors. 
Whatever  else  he  might  have  seen  and 
learnt,  when  he  was  a  boy  he  knew  what 
his  two  mothers  thought  religion  meant, 
and  he  never  got  away  from  that. 

"Of  course  he  had  other  teachin',  prin 
cipally  what  he  got  from  the  preachers 
that  came  around,  now  and  then.  Ram- 
blin'  lot  they  was,  men  all  het  up  over  the 
sins  of  the  world,  and  bent  on  doin'  their 
part  towards  headin'  off  people  from  hell- 
fire.  They  traveled  around  alone,  some 
times  on  horseback,  sometimes  afoot — 
poor  as  Job,  not  too  much  to  wear  or  to 
eat,  never  thinkin'  of  themselves,  only 
about  savin'  souls ;  and  it  was  natural  that 
bein'  alone  so  much,  seein'  so  much  misery 

132 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
and  so  much  wickedness,  for  there  was  lots 
that  was  bad  in  that  part  of  the  world  in 
them  times — natural  enough  meditatin'  as 
they  did  that  they  preached  pretty  strong 
doctrine.  Didn't  have  a  chance  often  at 
a  congregation,  and  felt  they  must  scare 
it  to  repentance  if  they  couldn't  do  no 
other  way.  .They'd  work  up  people  'til 
they  got  'em  to  shoutin'  for  mercy. 

"I  don't  suppose  they  ever  had  anybody 
that  listened  better  to  'em  than  Mr. 
Lincoln.  I  can  just  see  him  watchin'  'em 
and  tryin'  to  understand  what  they  meant. 
He  was  curious,  rolled  things  over,  kept 
at  'em  and  no  amount  of  excitement  they 
stirred  up  would  ever  have  upset  him. 
Xo,  he  wa'n't  that  kind. 

"But  he  remembered  what  they  said, 
and  the  way  they  said  it.  Used  to  get  the 
youngsters  together  and  try  it  on  them.  I 
heard  him  talkin'  in  here  one  day  about 
the  early  preachin'  and  I  remember  his 

133 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
sayin' :  'I  got  to  be  quite  a  preacher  my 
self  in  those  days.  You  know  how  those 
old  fellows  felt  they  hadn't  done  their  duty 
if  they  didn't  get  everybody  in  the  church 
weepin'  for  their  sins.  We  never  set 
much  store  by  a  preacher  that  didn't  draw 
tears  and  groans.  Pretty  strong  doc 
trine,  mostly  hell-fire.  There  was  a  time 
when  I  preached  myself  to  the  children 
every  week  we  didn't  have  a  minister. 
I  didn't  think  much  of  my  sermon  if  I 
didn't  make  'em  cry.  I  reckon  there  was 
more  oratory  than  religion  in  what  I  had 
to  say.' 

"I  reckon  he  was  right  about  that,  allus 
tryin'  to  see  if  he  could  do  what  other 
folks  did,  sort  of  measurin'  himself. 

"Yes,  sir,  so  far  as  preachin'  was  con 
cerned  it  was  a  God  of  wrath  that  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  was  brought  up  on,  and  there 
ain't  any  denyin'  that  he  had  to  go  through 
a  lot  that  carried  out  that  idea.  A  boy 

134 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
can't  grow  up  in  a  backwoods  settlement 
like  Gentryville,  Indiana,  without  seein'  a 
lot  that's  puzzlin',  sort  of  scares  you  and 
makes  you  miserable.  Things  was  harsh 
and  things  was  skimpy.  There  wa'n't 
so  much  to  eat.  Sometimes  there  was 
fever  and  ague  and  rheumatiz  and  milk 
sick.  Woman  died  from  too  much  work. 
No  medicine — no  care,  like  his  mother  did. 
I  expect  there  wa'n't  any  human  crime  or 
sorrow  he  didn't  know  about,  didn't 
wonder  about.  Thing  couldn't  be  so  ter 
rible  he  would  keep  away  from  it.  Why 
I  heard  him  tell  once  how  a  boy  he  knew 
went  crazy,  never  got  over  it,  used  to  sing 
to  himself  all  night  long,  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  that  he  couldn't  keep  away,  but  used 
to  slip  out  nights  and  listen  to  that  poor 
idiot  croonin'  to  himself.  He  was  like 
that,  interested  in  strange  things  he  didn't 
understand,  in  signs  and  dreams  and 
mysteries. 

135 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIK 
"Still  things  have  to  be  worse  than  they 
generally  are  anywhere  to  keep  a  boy 
down-hearted  right  along — specially  a 
boy  like  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  an  investigatin' 
turn  of  mind  like  his,  so  many  new  things 
comin'  along  to  surprise  you.  Why  it 
was  almost  like  Robinson  Crusoe  out  there 
—wild  land,  havin'  to  make  everything 
for  yourself — hunt  your  meat  and  grow 
your  cotton,  mighty  excitin'  life  for  a  boy 
—lots  to  do — lots  of  fun,  too,  winter  and 
summer.  Somehow  when  you  grow  up 
in  the  country  you  can't  make  out  that 
God  ain't  kind,  if  he  is  severe.  I  reckon 
that  was  the  way  Mr.  Lincoln  sized  it  up 
early ;  world  might  be  a  vale  of  tears,  like 
they  taught,  but  he  saw  it  was  mighty  in- 
terestin'  too,  and  a  good  deal  of  fun  to  be 
got  along  with  the  tears. 

"Trouble  was  later  to  keep  things  bal 
anced.  The  older  he  grew,  the  more  he 
read,  and  he  begun  to  run  up  against  a 

136 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
kind  of  thinkin'  along  about  the  time  he 
was  twenty-one  or  twenty-two  that  was  a 
good  deal  different  from  that  he'd  been 
used  to,  books  that  made  out  the  Bible 
wa'n't  so,  that  even  said  there  wa'n't  any 
God.  We  all  took  a  turn  at  readin'  Tom 
Paine  and  Voltaire  out  here,  and  there  was 
another  book  —  somebody's  'Ruins' —  I 
forget  the  name." 
"Volney?" 

"Yes,  that's  it.  Volney's  Ruins." 
"Do  you  know  I  think  that  book  took 
an  awful  grip  on  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  reckon 
it  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  realized 
how  long  the  world's  been  runnin';  how 
many  lots  of  men  have  lived  and  settled 
countries  and  built  cities  and  how  time  and 
time  again  they've  all  been  wiped  out. 
Mr.  Lincoln  couldn't  get  over  that.  I've 
heard  him  talk  about  how  old  the  world 
was  time  and  time  again,  how  nothing 
lasted — men — cities — nations.  One  set 
137 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
on  top  of  another — men  comin'  along  jus? 
as  interested  and  busy  as  we  are,  in  doin' 
things,  and  then  little  by  little  all  they 
done  passin'  away. 

"He  was  always  speculatin'  about  that 
kind  of  thing.  I  remember  in  '48  when 
he  came  back  from  Congress  he  stopped 
to  see  Niagara  Falls.  Well,  sir,  when  he 
got  home  he  couldn't  talk  about  anything 
else  for  days,  seemed  to  knock  politics 
clean  out  of  his  mind.  He'd  sit  there  that 
fall  in  that  chair  you're  in  and  talk 
and  talk  about  it.  Talk  just  like  it's 
printed  in  those  books  his  secretary  got 
up.  I  never  cared  myself  for  all  those 
articles  they  wrote.  Wrong,  am  I? 
Mebbe  so,  but  there  wa'n't  enough  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  in  'em  to  suit  me.  I  wanted  to 
know  what  he  said  about  everything  in 
his  own  words.  But  I  tell  you  when  I 
saw  the  books  with  the  things  he  had  said 
and  wrote  all  brought  together  nice  and 

138 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
neat,  and  one  after  another,  I  just  took  to 
that.  I've  got  'em  here  in  my  desk,  often 
read  'em  and  lots  of  it  sounds  just  as  nat 
ural,  almost  hear  him  sayin'  it,  just  as  if 
he  was  settin'  here  by  the  stove. 

"Now  what  he  tells  about  Niagara  in  the 
book  is  like  that — just  as  if  he  was  here. 
I  can  hear  him  sayin':  'Why,  Billy,  when 
Columbus  first  landed  here,  when  Christ 
suffered  on  the  Cross,  when  Moses  crossed 
dry-shod  through  the  Red  Sea,  even  when 
Adam  was  first  made,  Niagara  was  roarin' 
away.  He'd  talk  in  here  just  as  it  is 
printed  there;  how  the  big  beasts  whose 
bones  they've  found  in  mounds  must  have 
seen  the  falls,  how  it's  older  than  them  and 
and  older  than  the  first  race  of  men. 
They're  all  dead  and  gone,  not  even  bones 
of  many  of  'em  left,  and  yet  there's 
Niagara  boomin'  away  fresh  as  ever. 

"He  used  to  prove  by  the  way  the  water 
had  worn  away  the  rocks  that  the  world 

139 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
was  at  least  fourteen  thousand  years  old. 
A  long  spell,  but  folks  tell  me  it  ain't 
nothin'  to  what  is  bein'  estimated  now. 

"Makes  men  seem  pretty  small,  don't 
it?  God  seems  to  wipe  'em  out  as  care 
less  like  as  if  He  were  cleanin'  a  slate. 
How  could  He  care  and  do  that?  It 
made  such  a  mite  of  a  man,  no  better'n 
a  fly.  That's  what  bothered  Mr.  Lincoln. 
I  know  how  he  felt.  That's  the  way  it 
hit  me  when  I  first  began  to  understand 
all  the  stars  were  worlds  like  ours. 
What  I  couldn't  see  and  can't  now  is  how 
we  can  be  so  blame  sure  ours  is  the  only 
world  with  men  on.  And  if  they're 
others  and  they're  wiped  out  regular  like 
we  are,  well  it  knocked  me  all  of  a  heap  at 
first,  'peared  to  me  mighty  unlikely  that 
God  knew  anything  about  me. 

"I  expect  Mr.  Lincoln  felt  something 
like  that  when  he  studied  how  old  the 

140 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
world  was  and  how  one  set  of  ruins  was 
piled  on  top  of  another. 

"Then  there  was  another  thing.  Lots 
of  those  old  cities  and  old  nations  wa'n't 
Christian  at  all,  and  yet  accordin'  to  the 
ruins  it  looked  as  if  the  people  was  just 
as  happy,  knew  just  as  much,  had  just 
as  good  laws  as  any  Christian  nation  now ; 
some  of  them  a  blamed  sight  better.  Now 
how  was  a  boy  like  Lincoln  going  to 
handle  a  problem  like  that?  Well  I 
guess  for  a  time  he  handled  it  like  the  man 
who  wrote  about  the  Ruins.  Never 
seemed  queer  to  me  he  should  have  writ 
ten  a  free-thinkin'  book  after  that  kind 
of  readin'.  I  reckon  he  had  to  write  some 
thing  to  get  his  head  clear.  Allus  had 
to  have  things  clear. 

"You  know  that  story  of  course  about 
that  book.  First  time  I  ever  heard  it 
was  back  in  1846  when  him  and  Elder 

14,1 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
Cartwright  was  runnin'  for  Congress. 
You  know  about  Cartwright?  Well,  sir, 
he  made  his  campaign  against  Lincoln 
in  '46,  not  on  politics  at  all — made  it  on 
chargin'  him  with  bein'  an  infidel  because 
he  wa'n't  a  church  member  and  because 
jhe  said  Mr.  Lincoln  had  written  a  free 
thought  book  when  he  was  a  boy.  He 
kept  it  up  until  along  in  the  fall  Mr. 
Lincoln  shut  him  up  good.  He'd  gone 
down  to  where  Cartwright  lived  to  make 
a  political  speech  and  some  of  us  went 
along.  Cartwright  was  runnin'  a  revival, 
and  long  in  the  evening  before  startin' 
home  we  went  in  and  set  in  the  back  of 
the  church.  When  it  came  time  to  ask 
sinners  to  come  forward,  the  elder  got 
pretty  excited.  'Where  be  you  goin'  ?'  he 
shouted.  'To  Hell  if  you  don't  repent 
and  come  to  this  altar.'  At  last  he  began 
to  call  on  Mr.  Lincoln  to  come  forward. 

142 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
Well,  you  know  nobody  likes  to  be  calle3 
out  like  that  right  in  meetin'.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  didn't  budge,  just  set  there.  The 
elder  he  kept  it  up.  Finally  he  shouted, 
'If  Mr.  Lincoln  ain't  goin'  to  repent  and 
go  to  Heaven,  where  is  he  goin'?'  In- 
timatin',  I  suppose,  that  he  was  headed  for 
Hell.  'Where  be  you  goin',  Mr.  Lin 
coln?'  he  shouted. 

"Well,  sir,  at  that  Mr.  Lincoln  rose  up 
and  said  quiet  like : 

*  'I'm  goin'  to  Congress.' 

"For  a  minute  you  could  have  heard  a 
pin  drop  and  then — well,  I  just  snorted 
• — couldn't  help  it.  Ma  was  awful 
ashamed  when  I  told  her,  said  I  oughtin' 
to  done  it — right  in  meetin',  but  I  couldn't 
help  it — just  set  there  and  shook  and 
shook.  The  elder  didn't  make  any  more 
observations  to  Mr.  Lincoln  that  trip. 

"Goin'  home  I  said,  'Mr.  Lincoln,  you 

143 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
just  served  the  elder  right,  shut  him  up, 
and  I  guess  you're  right;  you  be  goin'  to 
Congress.' 

"'Well,  Billy,'  he  said,  smilin'  and 
lookin'  serious.  Tve  made  up  my  mind 
that  Brother  Cartwright  ain't  goin'  to 
make  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  a  polit 
ical  issue  in  this  District  if  I  can  help  it.' 

"Some  of  the  elder's  friends  pretended 
to  think  Mr.  Lincoln  was  mockin'  at  the 
Christian  religion  when  he  answered  back 
like  that.  Not  a  bit.  He  was  protectin' 
it  accordin'  to  my  way  of  thinkin'. 

"I  reckon  I  understand  him  a  little  be 
cause  I'm  more  or  less  that  way  myself — 
can't  help  seein'  things  funny.  I've  done 
a  lot  of  things  Ma  says  people  misunder 
stand.  A  while  back  comin'  home  from 
New  York  I  did  somethin'  I  expect  some 
people  would  have  called  mockin'  at  re 
ligion;  Mr.  Lincoln  wouldn't. 

"You  see  I'd  been  down  to  buy  drugs 

144 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
and  comin'  home  I  was  readin'  the  Bible 
in  the  mornin'  in  my  seat  in  the  sleepin' 
car.  Allus  read  a  chapter  every  mornin', 
Ma  got  me  in  the  way  of  it,  and  I  like  it 
— does  me  good — keeps  me  from  burstin' 
out  at  somebody  when  I  get  mad,  that  is, 
it  does  for  the  most  part. 

"Well,  as  I  was  say  in',  I  was  readin' 
my  chapter,  and  I  reckon  mebbe  I  was 
readin'  out  loud  when  I  looked  up  and 
see  the  porter  lookin'  at  me  and  kinda 
snickerin'. 

"  'See  here,  boy,'  I  says,  'you  smilin'  at 
the  Bible.  Well,  you  set  down  there.  Set 
down,'  I  says.  I'm  a  pretty  stout  man  as 
you  can  see,  weigh  200,  and  I  reckon  I  can 
throw  most  men  my  size.  Why,  I've 
wrestled  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  yes,  sir,  wres 
tled  with  Abraham  Lincoln,  right  out  there 
in  the  alley.  You  see,  I  ain't  used  to  bein' 
disobeyed,  and  that  nigger  knew  it,  and 
he  just  dropped. 

145 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
"  'Boy,'  I  says,  'I'm  goin'  to  read  you  a 
chapter  out  of  this  Bible,  and  you're  goin' 
to  listen.'  And  I  did  it.  'Now,'  I  says, 
'down  with  you  on  your  knees,  we're  goin' 
to  have  prayers.'  Well,  sir,  you  never 
seen  such  a  scared  darky.  Down  he  went, 
and  down  I  went,  and  I  prayed  out  loud 
for  that  porter's  soul  and  before  I  was 
through  he  was  sayin'  'Amen.' 

"Of  course  the  passengers  began  to 
take  notice,  and  about  the  time  I  was  done 
along  came  the  conductor,  and  he  lit  into 
me  and  said  he  wa'n't  goin'  to  have  any 
such  performances  in  his  car. 

"Well,  you  can  better  guess  that  gave 
me  a  text.  He'd  a  man  in  that  car  fillin' 
himself  up  with  liquor  half  the  night,  just 
plain  drunk  and  disorderly.  'I  ain't 
heard  you  makin'  any  loud  objections  to 
the  drinkin'  goin'  on  in  this  car,'  I  says. 
'If  that  don't  disturb  the  peace,  prayin' 
won't.'  And  two  or  three  passengers  just 

146 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
chimed    right    in    and    said,    'That's    so. 
Do  us  all  good  if  we  had  more  prayin'  and 
less    drinkinV     Fact   was,    I    was    quite 
popular  the  rest  of  the  trip. 

"Now  I  reckon  some  would  a  been 
shocked  by  what  I  done.  Ma  said  when 
I  told  her.  'Now  you  know,  William,  it 
wasn't  that  porter's  soul  you  was  inter 
ested  in  half  as  much  as  gettin'  a  little  fun 
out  of  him.'  Well,  mebbe  so.  I  won't 
deny  there  was  some  mischief  in  it.  But 
it  wouldn't  have  shocked  Mr.  Lincoln. 
He'd  understood.  Seems  a  pity  I  can't 
tell  him  about  that.  He'd  enjoyed  it. 

"Well,  to  go  back  to  Cartwright  and  the 
free  thought  book  he  said  Lincoln  wrote 
when  he  was  a  boy.  The  elder  didn't 
pretend  he'd  seen  the  book ;  said  the  reason 
he  hadn't  was  that  it  was  never  printed, 
only  written,  and  that  not  many  people 
ever  did  see  it  because  Sam  Hill,  the  store 
keeper  down  to  New  Salem,  thinkin'  it 

147 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
might  hurt  Lincoln  had  snatched  it  away 
and  thrown  it  into  the  stove  and  burnt  it 
up.     Now  what  do  you  think  of  that? 

"Well,  Cartwright  didn't  get  elected— 
got  beaten — beaten  bad  and  nobody 
around  here  ever  talked  about  that  book 
when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  runnin'  for  Pres 
ident  that  I  heard  of.  It  was  after  he 
was  dead  that  somebody  raked  up  that 
story  again  and  printed  it.  It  never  made 
much  difference  to  me.  I  allus  thought 
it  likely  he  did  write  something  along 
the  lines  he'd  been  readin'  after.  But 
sakes  alive,  you  ought  to  seen  the  fur  fly 
out  here.  All  the  church  people  riz  right 
up  and  proved  it  wa'n't  so ;  and  those  that 
didn't  profess  lit  in  and  proved  it  was  so. 
They  got  all  the  old  inhabitants  of  San- 
gamon  County  who  knew  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
writin'  letters.  Lot  of  them  published 
in  the  papers. 

"One  of  the  most  inter estin'  accordin'  to 

148 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
my  way  of  thinkin'  was  a  letter  that  came 
out  from  Mentor  Graham,  Lincoln's  old 
school-master.  I  don't  remember  it  ex 
act,  but  near  as  I  can  recall  he  said  Lin 
coln  asked  him  one  day  when  he  was  livin' 
at  his  house  going  to  school  what  he 
thought  about  the  anger  of  the  Lord,  and 
then  he  went  on  to  say  that  he  had  writ 
ten  something  along  that  line  and  wished 
Mr.  Graham  would  read  it.  Well,  sir, 
Mr.  Graham  wrote  in  that  letter  that  this 
thing  Lincoln  wrote  proved  God  was  too 
good  to  destroy  the  people  He'd  made,  and 
that  all  the  misery  Adam  brought  on  us 
by  his  sin  had  been  wiped  out  by  the  atone 
ment  of  Christ.  Now  mind  that  was  an 
honest  man  writin'  that  letter,  a  man 
who'd  been  Lincoln's  friend  from  the 
start.  To  be  sure  it  was  some  time  after 
the  event — pretty  near  40  years  and  I 
must  say  I  always  suspicion  a  man's  re 
membering  anything  very  exact  after  40 
149 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
years.     But   one  thing  is   sure,   Mentor 
Graham  knew  Lincoln  in  those  days,  and 
that's  more  than  most  of  them  that  was 
arguin'  this  thing  did. 

"Always  seemed  to  me  about  as  reliable 
testimony  as  anybody  offered.  I  con 
tended  that  most  likely  Lincoln  did  write 
just  what  Mentor  Graham  said  he  did,  and 
that  the  brethren  thought  it  was  dangerous 
doctrine  to  make  out  God  was  that  good, 
and  so  they  called  him  an  infidel.  Nothin' 
riled  those  old  fellows  religiously  like  try- 
in'  to  make  out  God  didn't  damn  every 
body  that  didn't  believe  according  to  the 
way  they  read  the  Scriptures.  Seemed 
to  hate  to  think  about  Mr.  Lincoln's  God. 
I  almost  felt  sometimes  as  if  they'd  rather 
a  man  would  say  there  wa'n't  no  God  than 
to  make  him  out  a  God  of  Mercy. 

"But  sakes'  alive,  Mentor  Graham's 
letter  didn't  settle  it.  The  boys  used  to 
get  to  rowin'  about  it  in  here  sometimes 

150 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
around  the  stove  until  I  could  hardly 
keep  track  of  my  perscriptions.  The 
funniest  thing  you  ever  heard  was  one 
night  when  they  were  at  it  and  an  old 
fellow  who  used  to  live  in  New  Salem 
dropped  in,  so  they  put  it  up  to  him;  said 
he  lived  in  New  Salem  in  '33;  said  he 
knew  Lincoln.  Wanted  to  know  if  he 
ever  heard  of  his  writin'  a  book  that  Sam 
Hill  burned  up  in  the  stove  in  his  store. 
The  old  fellow  listened  all  through  with 
out  sayin'  a  word,  and  when  they  was  fin 
ished  he  said,  solemn  like,  'Couldn't  have 
happened.  Wa'n't  no  stove.  Sam  Hill 
never  had  one.' 

"Well,  sir,  you  ought  to  seen  their 
jaws  drop.  Just  set  starin'  at  him  and  I 
thought  I'd  die  a  laffin'  to  see  'em  collapse. 
I  wish  Mr.  Lincoln  could  have  heard  that 
old  fellow,  'Wa'n't  no  stove.'  How  he'd 
enjoyed  that — 'Wa'n't  no  stove.' 

"But  for  all  that  I  never  regarded  that 

151 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
witness  over  high.     Of  course  Sam  Hill 
must  have  had  a   stove  otherwise  there 
wouldn't  have  been  a  place  for  folks  to 
set  around. 

"It  ain't  important  to  my  mind  what 
was  in  that  book.  What's  important  is 
that  Abraham  Lincoln  wa's  wrestlin'  in 
those  days  to  find  out  the  truth,  wa'n't 
content  like  I  was  to  settle  down  smoth- 
erin'  any  reservations  that  I  might  a  had. 
He  never  did  that,  grappled  hard  with 
everything  touchin'  religion  that  came  up, 
no  matter  which  side  it  was.  He  never 
shirked  the  church  if  he  wa'n't  a  member, 
went  regular,  used  to  go  to  revivals  and 
camp  meetings  too  in  those  days  when  he 
was  readin'  the  'Ruins.'  Most  of  the 
boys  who  didn't  profess  went  to  camp 
meetings  for  deviltry — hang  around  on 
the  edges — playin'  tricks — teasin'  the 
girls — sometimes  gettin'  into  regular 
fights.  Mr.  Lincoln  never  joined  into 

152 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
any  horse  play  like  that.  He  took  it 
solemn.  I  reckon  he  wouldn't  ever  hesi 
tated  a  minute  to  go  forward  and  ask 
prayers  if  he'd  really  believed  that  was 
the  way  for  him  to  find  God.  He  knew 
it  wa'n't.  The  God  he  was  searchin'  for 
wa'n't  the  kind  they  was  preaehin'.  He 
was  tryin'  to  find  one  that  he  could  re 
concile  with  what  he  was  findin'  out  about 
the  world — its  ruins — its  misery.  Clear 
as  day  to  me  that  that  was  what  he  was 
after  from  the  start — some  kind  of  plan 
in  things,  that  he  could  agree  to. 

"He  certainly  did  have  a  lot  to  discour 
age  him — worst  was  when  he  lost  his 
sweetheart.  I've  allus  figured  it  out  that 
if  Ann  Rutledge  had  lived  and  married 
him  he'd  been  a  different  man — leastwise 
he'd  been  happier.  He  might  have  even 
got  converted  and  joined  the  church,  like 
I  did  after  I  courted  Ma.  A  good  woman 
sort  of  carries  a  man  along  when  he  loves 

153 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
'her.  It's  a  mighty  sight  easier  to  believe 
in  the  goodness  of  the  Lord  and  the  hap 
piness  of  man  when  you're  in  love  like 
I've  allus  been,  and  like  he  was  with  that 
girl. 

"There  was  no  doubt  she  was  a  fine  girl 
— no  doubt  he  loved  her.  When  she  died 
he  was  all  broke  up  for  days.  I've  heard 
his  old  friends  tell  how  he  give  up  workin' 
and  readin' — wandered  off  into  the  fields 
talkin'  to  himself.  Seemed  as  if  he 
couldn't  bear  to  think  of  her  covered  over 
with  snow — beaten  on  by  rain — wastin' 
away — eaten  by  worms.  I  tell  you  he 
was  the  kind  that  saw  it  all  as  it  was. 
That's  the  hard  part  of  bein'  so  honest 
you  see  things  just  as  they  are — don't  pre 
tend  things  are  different — just  as  they 
are.  He  couldn't  get  over  it.  I  believe 
it's  the  Lord's  mercy  he  didn't  kill  himself 
those  days.  Everybody  thought  he  was 
goin'  crazy,  but  I  rather  think  myself  he 

154 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
was  wrestlin'  with  himself,  tryin'  to  make 
himself  live.  Men  like  him  want  to  die 
pretty  often.  I  reckon  he  must  have 
cried  out  many  a  night  like  Job  did, 
'What  is  mine  end  that  I  should  prolong 
my  life?  My  soul  chooseth  strangling 
and  death  rather  than  life.  I  loathe  it. 
I  would  not  live  alway.' 

"He  pulled  out,  of  course,  but  he  never 
got  over  havin'  spells  of  terrible  gloom. 
I  expect  there  was  always  a  good  many 
nights  up  to  the  end  when  he  wondered  if 
life  was  worth  keepin'.  Black  moods 
took  him  and  he'd  go  days  not  hardly 
speakin'  to  people — come  in  here — set  by 
the  stove — not  savin'  a  word — get  up — 
go  out — hardly  noticin'  you.  Boys  un 
derstood,  used  to  -say  'Mr.  Lincoln's  got 
the  blues.' 

"Curious  how  quick  things  changed 
with  him.  He'd  be  settin'  here,  laffin' 
and  jokin',  tellin'  stories  and  somebody'd 

155 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
drop  some  little  thing,  nobody  else  would 
think  about,  and  suddent  his  eyes  would 
go  sad  and  his  face  broodin'  and  he'd  stop 
talkin'  or  like  as  not  get  up  and  go  out. 
I  don't  mean  to  say  this  happened  often. 
Of  course  that  wa'n't  so;  as  I've  told  you 
no  end  of  times,  he  was  the  best  company 
that  ever  was — the  fullest  of  stories  and 
jokes,  and  nobody  could  talk  serious  like 
him.  You  could  listen  forever  when  he'd 
get  to  arguin',  but  spite  of  all  that  you 
knew  somehow  he  was  a  lonely  man  who 
had  to  fight  hard  to  keep  up  his  feelin' 
that  life  was  worth  goin'  on  with.  Gave 
you  queer  feelin'  about  him — you  knew 
he  was  different  from  the  others,  and  it 
kept  you  from  bein'  over-familiar. 

"There  was  a  man  in  here  the  other  day 
I  hadn't  seen  for  years — used  to  be  a  con 
ductor  between  here  and  Chicago — knew 
him  well.  It  tickled  him  to  death  to  have 
jne  set  him  in  that  chair  you're  in — looked 

156 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
it  all  over,  said  it  seemed  as  if  he  could 
just  see  Mr.  Lincoln  settin'  there.  Well, 
he  got  to  talkin'  about  all  the  big  bugs 
that  used  to  travel  with  him,  Little  Dug, 
Judge  Davis,  Logan,  Swett,  Welden, 
and  all  the  rest;  and  he  said  something 
about  Mr.  Lincoln  that  shows  how  he 
struck  ordinary  people.  He  said  Lincoln 
was  the  most  folksy  of  any  of  them,  but 
that  there  was  something  about  him  that 
made  everybody  stand  a  little  in  awe  of 
him.  You  could  get  near  him  in  ^  ~oil 
of  neighborly  way,  as  though  you  had  al 
ways  known  him,  but  there  was  something 
tremendous  between  you  and  him  all  the 
time. 

"This  man  said  he  had  eaten  with  him 
many  times  at  the  railroad  eatin'  houses. 
Everybody  tried  to  get  near  Lincoln 
when  he  was  eatin',  because  he  was  such 
good  company,  but  they  looked  at  him 
with  a  kind  of  wonder,  couldn't  exactly 
157 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
make  him  out.  Sometimes  there  was  a 
dreadful  loneliness  in  his  look,  and  the 
boys  used  to  wonder  what  he  was  thinkin' 
about.  Whatever  it  was,  he  was  think- 
in'  all  alone.  No  one  was  afraid  of  him, 
but  there  was  something  about  him  that 
made  plain  folks  feel  toward  him  a  good 
deal  as  a  child  feels  toward  his  father, 
because  you  know  every  child  looks  upon 
his  father  as  a  wonderful  man. 

"There  ain't  any  doubt  but  there  was 
a  good  many  years  after  Mr.  Lincoln  got 
started  and  everybody  in  the  state  held 
him  high,  when  he  was  a  disappointed  man 
and  when  he  brooded  a  good  deal  over  the 
way  life  was  goin'.  Trouble  was  he 
hadn't  got  a  grip  yet  on  anything  that 
satisfied  him.  He  hadn't  made  a  go  of 
politics,  had  quit  it.  Of  course  he  had 
plenty  of  law  practice,  but,  Lord  a 
mighty,  you  take  a  town  like  this  was 
along  in  the  40's  and  50's,  when  Mr.  Lin- 

158 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
coin  was  practicin'  here,  and  get  right 
down  to  what  was  really  happenin',  and  it 
was  enuff  to  make  a  broodin'  man  like  him 
sick,  and  want  to  quit.  He  had  to  handle 
it  all,  a  lawyer  does,  men  fightin'  over  a 
dollar,  gettin'  rich  on  cheatin',  stingy  with 
their  wives,  breakin'  up  families,  quar- 
relin'  over  wills,  neglectin'  the  old  folks 
and  yet  standin'  high  in  the  church,  regu 
lar  at  prayer  meetin',  and  teachin'  in  Sun 
day  School.  There  was  a  lot  of  steady 
meanness  like  that  all  around,  and  it  made 
him  feel  bad. 

"And  then  there  was  dreadful  things 
happened  every  now  and  then,  men  takin' 
up  with  girls  when  they  had  good  wives 
of  their  own.  There's  more  than  one 
poor  child  lyin'  over  there  in  the  grave 
yard  because  some  onery  old  scoundrel 
got  the  better  of  her,  and  there's  more 
than  one  good  man  been  put  to  shame  in 
this  town  because  some  woman  who  was 
J59 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
no  better  than  she  ought  to  be  run  him 
down.  Lord,  it  makes  you  sick,  and  then 
every  now  and  then  right  out  of  a  clear 
sky  there'd  be  a  murder  somewhere  in  the 
country.  Nobody  would  talk  of  any 
thing  else  for  days.  People  who  hardly 
ever  opened  their  mouths  would  find  their 
tongues  and  tell  the  durnedest  things. 

"It  was  so  all  the  time  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  practicin'  out  here.  And  it  made 
him  pretty  miserable  sometimes,  I  reckon, 
to  see  so  much  meanness  around.  I 
never  knew  a  man  who  liked  people  bet- 
ter'n  Mr.  Lincoln  did — seemed  as  if  he 
felt  the  world  ought  to  be  happy,  and 
that  it  could  be  if  people  would  only  do 
the  right  thing.  You've  heard  people 
tellin'  how  he'd  refuse  a  case  often  if  he 
didn't  think  it  ought  to  be  brought. 
Well,  sir,  that's  true.  I've  heard  him 
argue  time  and  again  with  the  boys  about 
the  duty  of  lawyers  to  discourage  law- 
160 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
suits.  'It's  our  business  to  be  peacemak 
ers,'  he  used  to  tell  'em,  'not  to  stir  up 
quarrels  for  the  sake  of  makin'  a  little 
money.'  I  remember  somebody  tellin' 
how  they  heard  him  lecturin'  a  man  who'd 
brought  him  a  case,  and  pointed  out  that 
by  some  sort  of  a  legal  trick,  he  could  get 
$600.  Made  Lincoln  mad  all  through. 
'I  won't  take  your  case,'  he  said,  'but  I'll 
give  you  some  free  advice.  You're  a 
husky  young  man.  Go  to  work  and  earn 
your  $600.' 

"I've  always  figured  it  out  that  he  was 
a  sight  more  contented  after  he  got  his 
grip  on  the  slavery  question.  You  know 
how  he  felt  about  slavery;  thought  it  was 
wrong,  and  when  he  began  to  see  there 
was  a  chance  to  fight  it  in  a  way  that 
would  count,  he  felt  different  towards  his 
life,  saw  it  did  mean  something,  began  to 
feel  he  was  some  real  use.  I  reckon  he 
began  to  believe  God  had  a  place  for  him 
161 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
— that  he  was  put  into  the  world  for  a 
good  and  sufficient  reason.  Now  as  I 
see  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  was  all  he  ever 
needed  to  reconcile  him  to  things.  As  he 
began  to  see  more  and  more  that  he  had 
his  argument  sound,  and  that  it  was 
takin'  hold  in  the  country,  that  men  was 
listenin'  to  him  and  sayin'  he  had  it  right, 
why  more  and  more  he  was  something  like 
happy.  He  made  up  his  mind  that  the 
time  had  come  when  God  meant  to  say  to 
slavery,  'Thus  far  and  no  farther,'  and  he 
was  ready  to  put  in  his  best  licks  to  help 
Him. 

"He  wrestled  with  that  question  till  he 
drove  it  clean  out  of  politics  right  down 
onto  bed  rock  of  right  and  wrong,  and 
there  he  stood;  slavery  was  wrong,  and 
accordin'  to  his  way  of  lookin'  at  it,  peo 
ple  who  pretended  to  regulate  their  lives 
on  religion  ought  to  be  agin  it.  Allus 
troubled  him  a  lot  and  sometimes  made 
162 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
him  pretty  bitter  that  so  many  folks  that 
stood  high  as  Christians  was  for  slavery. 
I  remember  Newt  Bateman  tellin'  how 
Lincoln  came  in  his  office  one  day  after 
his  nomination — Newt  was  State  School 
Superintendent,  and  he  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  always  great  friends, — well,  he  said 
Mr.  Lincoln  came  in  with  a  report  of  a 
canvass  of  how  people  in  Springfield  were 
goin'  to  vote,  and  he  said: 

'  'Let's  see  how  the  ministers  in  this 
town  are  goin'  to  vote,'  and  he  went 
through  the  list  pickin'  'em  out  and  set- 
tin'  'em  down,  <and,  would  you  believe  it 
now,  he  found  that  out  of  23  ministers  20 
were  against  him.  He  was  dreadfully 
upset,  and  talked  a  long  time  about  it. 
Newt  said  he  pulled  a  New  Testament 
out  of  his  pocket. 

'What  I  don't  understand,'  he  said, 
'is  how  anybody  can  think  this  book  stands 
for  slavery.  Human  bondage  can't  live 

163 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
a  minute  in  its  light,  and  yet  here's  all 
these  men  who  consider  themselves  called 
to  make  the  teachin'  of  this  book  clear 
votin'  against  me.  I  don't  understand 
it. 

"  'They  know  Douglas  don't  care 
whether  slavery's  voted  up  or  down,  but 
they  ought  to  know  that  God  cares  and 
humanity  cares  and  they  know  I  care. 
They  ain't  been  readin'  their  Bibles  right. 

"  'Seems  to  me  sometimes  as  if  God  had 
borne  with  this  thing  until  the  very  teach 
ers  of  religion  had  come  to  defend  it  out 
of  the  Bible.  But  they'll  find  the  day 
will  come  when  His  wrath  will  upset  it. 
I  believe  the  cup  of  iniquity  is  full,  and 
that  before  we  get  through  God  will  make 
the  country  suffer  for  toleratin'  a  thing 
that  is  so  contrary  to  what  He  teaches  in 
this  Book.' 

"As  I  see  it,  that  idee  grew  in  him. 
You  know  how  he  hated  war.     Seemed 
164 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
as  if  he  couldn't  stand  it  sometimes,  but 
there  ain't  no  doubt  that  more  and  more 
he  looked  at  it  as  God's  doin' — His  way 
of  punishin'  men  for  their  sin  in  allowin' 
slavery.  He  said  that  more'n  once  to  the 
country.  Remember  what  he  wrote  in 
his  call  for  a  fast-day  in  the  spring  of 
'63?  No?  Well,  I've  got  it  here— just 
let  me  read  it  to  you." 

Billy  rose,  and  after  lingering  long 
enough  at  the  window  to  remark  that  the 
"storm  wa'n't  lettin'  up  any,"  went  to  a 
scratched  and  worn  desk,  a  companion 
piece  to  "Mr.  Lincoln's  chair,"  and  took 
from  the  drawer  where  he  kept  his  pre 
cious  relics  a  bundle  of  faded  yellow  news 
papers  and  selected  a  copy  of  the  New 
York  Tribune  of  March  31,  1863. 

"Now  you  listen,"  said  Billy,  "and  see 
if  I  ain't  right  that  his  idee  when  he  talked 
to  Newt  had  takin'  hold  of  him  deep." 
So  Billy  read  sonorously  the  sentences 

165 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
which  seemed  to  him  to  demonstrate  his 
point : 

"  'Insomuch  as  we  know  that  by  His  di 
vine  law  nations,  like  individuals,  are  sub 
jected  to  punishments  and  chastisements 
in  this  world,  may  we  not  justly  fear  that 
the  awful  calamity  of  civil  war  which  now 
desolates  the  land  may  be  but  a  punish 
ment  inflicted  upon  us  for  our  presumptu 
ous  sins,  to  the  needful  end  of  our  national 
reformation  as  a  whole  people.' 

* 'Isn't  that  just  what  he  said  to  Newt 
Bateman,"  Billy  stopped  long  enough  to 
remark. 

"  'We  have  been  the  recipients  of  the 
choicest  bounties  of  Heaven.  We  have 
been  preserved,  these  many  years,  in 
peace  and  prosperity.  We  have  grown 
in  numbers,  wealth,  and  power  as  no  other 
nation  has  ever  grown;  but  we  have  for 
gotten  God.  We  have  forgotten  the 
gracious  hand  which  preserved  us  in 
166 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
peace,  and  multiplied  and  enriched  and 
strengthened  us;  and  we  have  vainly  im 
agined,  in  the  deceitfulness  of  our  hearts, 
that  all  these  blessings  were  produced  by 
some  superior  wisdom  and  virtue  of  our 
own.  Intoxicated  with  unbroken  suc 
cess,  we  have  become  too  self -sufficient  to 
feel  the  necessity  of  redeeming  and  pre 
serving  grace,  too  .proud  to  pray  to  the 
God  that  made  us: 

"  'It  behooves  us,  then,  to  humble  our 
selves  before  the  offended  Power,  to  con 
fess  our  national  sins,  and  to  pray  for 
clemency  and  forgiveness.' 

"The  longer  the  war  went  on,  the  more 
and  more  sure  he  was  that  God  was 
workin'  out  something,  and  hard  as  it  was 
for  him,  the  more  and  more  reconciled  he 
got  to  God's  Government.  Seems  to  me 
that's  clear  from  what  he  said  in  his  last 
Inaugural.  You  remember: 
167 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
"The  Almighty  has  His  own  purposes. 
'Woe  unto  the  world  because  of  offenses! 
For  it  must  needs  be  that  offenses  come; 
but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offense 
cometh.'  Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently 
do  we  pray  that  this  mighty  scourge  of 
wrar  may  speedily  pass  away,  yet  if  God 
wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth 
piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be 
sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn 
with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another 
drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three 
thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be 
said,  'The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are 
true  and  righteous  altogether.' 

"I  like  to  say  that  just  like  he  said  it. 
Seems  kinda  like  music.  He  was  that 
way  sometimes,  swung  into  sort  of  talk 
and  made  your  heart  stop  to  listen ;  it  was 
so  sweet  and  solemn-like. 

"Makes  me  ache  though  to  think  what 
168 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
he  had  to  go  through  to  come  out  where 
he  could  talk  so  sure  and  calm  about 
things;  for  certain  as  he  was  that  God 
had  a  purpose  in  it  all,  he  wa'n't  so  sure 
always  that  he  was  proceedin'  along  the 
lines  the  Almighty  approved  of.  He 
never  got  over  that  struggle  long  as  he 
was  President,  always  askin'  himself 
whether  he  was  on  God's  side.  Puzzled 
him  bad  that  both  sides  thought  God  was 
with  'em.  He  pointed  out  more  than 
once  how  the  rebel  soldiers  was  prayin' 
for  victory  just  as  earnest  as  ours — how 
the  rebel  people  got  the  same  kind  of  help 
out  of  prayer  that  the  Union  people  did. 
And  both  couldn't  be  right. 

"There  isn't  any  doubt  he  often  tested 
out  whether  God  agreed  with  his  argu 
ment  or  not,  by  the  way  things  swung. 
It  was  that  way  about  the  Emancipa 
tion  Proclamation.  You  know  how  he 
thought  about  that  for  months,  and  for 
169 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
the  most  part  kept  it  to  himself.  He 
didn't  want  to  do  it  that  way,  was  dead 
set  on  the  North  buying  the  slaves  in 
stead  of  takin'  'em.  But  he  had  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  ready,  and 
and  he'd  told  God  he'd  let  it  loose  if  He'd 
give  us  the  victory.  Sounds  queer, 
mebbe,  but  that's  what  he  did.  He  told 
the  Cabinet  so,  and  they've  told  about  it. 
A  little  mite  superstitious,  some  would 
say.  But  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  little  super 
stitious,  interested  in  things  like  signs  and 
dreams — specially  dreams,  seemed  to  feel 
they  might  be  tryin'  to  give  him  a  hint. 
He's  told  me  many  a  time  about  dreams 
he'd  had,  used  to  have  same  dream  over 
and  over,  never  got  tired  studyin'  what  it 
meant.  You  remember  that  happened  in 
the  war.  He'd  used  to  dream  he  saw  a 
curious  lookin'  boat  runnin'  full  speed  to 
ward  a  shore  he  couldn't  make  out  clear, 
had  that  dream  before  nearly  all  the  big 
170 


IN     LINCOLN'S     CHAIR 

battles — had    it    the    night    before    they 
killed  him,  and  told  the  Cabinet  about  it 
—thought  it  meant  there'd  be  good  news 
from  Sherman. 

"He  got  powerful  discouraged  some 
times,  for  it  did  seem  the  first  three  years 
of  the  war  as  if  the  Almighty  wa'n't  sym- 
pathizin'  over  much  with  the  North. 
You  remember  how  I  told  you  once  of 
havin'  a  long  talk  with  him  at  night  that 
time  I  went  down  to  Washington  to  see 
him.  Things  was  bad,  awful  bad.  Coun 
try  just  plumb  worn  out  with  the  war. 
People  was  beginnin'  to  turn  against  it. 
Couldn't  stand  the  blood  lettin',  the  suf- 
f erin',  and  the  awful  wickedness  of  it. 
There  was  a  lot  of  that  f  eelin'  in  '64. 
People  willin'  to  give  up  anything — let 
the  South  go — let  her  keep  her  slaves — 
do  anything  to  put  an  end  to  the  killin'. 
I  tell  you  a  man  has  to  keep  his  eyes  ahead 
in  war — keep  tellin'  himself  over  and  over 
171 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
what's  it  all  about.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  to. 
They  were  talkin'  peace  to  him,  riotin' 
about  the  drafts,  stirrin'  up  more  kinds  of 
trouble  for  him  than  he  ever  knew  there 
was,  I  reckon.  And  he  felt  it — felt  it 
bad;  and  that  night  it  seemed  to  do  him 
good  to  talk  it  out.  You  see  I  come  from 
home,  and  I  didn't  have  no  connection 
with  things  down  there,  and  'twas  natural 
he'd  open  up  to  me  as  he  couldn't  to  them 
on  the  ground ;  and  he  did. 

"  'I've  studied  a  lot,  Billy,'  he  said, 
'whether  this  is  God's  side  of  this  war. 
I've  tried  my  best  to  figure  it  out  straight, 
and  I  can't  see  anything  but  that  He  must 
be  for  us.  But  look  how  things  is  goin'. 

"  'One  thing  sure  all  I  can  do  is  to  fol 
low  what  I  think's  right.  Whatever  shall 
appear  to  be  God's  will,  I'll  do.  There's 
quite  a  number  of  people  who  seem  to 
think  they  know  what  God  wants  me  to 
do.  They  come  down  every  now  and 
172 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
then  and  tell  me  so.  I  must  say  as  I've 
told  some  of  them  that  it's  more'n  likely 
if  God  is  goin'  to  reveal  His  will  on  a 
point  connected  with  my  duty  He'd  nat 
urally  reveal  it  to  me.  They  don't  all  lay 
it  up  against  me  when  I  talk  that  way. 
Take  the  Quakers.  They're  good  peo 
ple,  and  they've  been  in  a  bad  fix  for  they 
don't  believe  in  slavery,  and  they  don't 
believe  in  war,  and  yet  it  seems  to  have 
come  to  the  point  that  out  of  this  war 
started  to  save  free  government,  we're  go 
ing  to  get  rid  of  slavery.  But  they  can't 
accept  that  way.  Still  they  don't  lay  it 
up  against  me  that  I  do,  and  they  pray 
regular  for  me. 

'We've  been  wrong,  North  and  South, 
about  slavery.  No  use  to  blame  it  all  on 
the  South.  We've  been  in  it  too,  from 
the  start.  If  both  sides  had  been  willin' 
to  give  in  a  little,  we  might  a  worked  it 
out,  that  is  if  we'd  all  been  willin'  to  admit 
173 


IN    LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 
the  thing  was  wrong,  and  take  our  share 
of  the  burden  in  puttin'  an  end  to  it.     It's 
because  we  wouldn't  or  mebbe  couldn't 
that  war  has  come. 

"  'It's  for  our  sins,  Billy,  this  war  is. 
We've  brought  it  on  ourselves.  And 
God  ain't  goin'  to  stop  it  because  we  ask 
Him  to.  We've  got  to  fulfill  the  law. 
We  broke  the  law,  and  God  wouldn't  be 
God  as  I  see  Him  if  He  didn't  stand  by 
His  own  laws  and  make  us  take  all  that's 
comin'  to  us.  I  can't  think  we  won't  win 
the  war.  Seems  to  me  that  must  be  God's 
way,  but  if  we  don't,  and  the  Union  is 
broken  and  slavery  goes  on,  well,  all  it 
means  accordin'  to  my  way  of  seein* 
things  is  that  the  laws  ain't  satisfied  yet, 
that  we  'ain't  done  our  part.  There'll 
be  more  trouble  until  the  reason  of  trouble 
ends. 

"  'But  I  don't  lay  it  up  against  God. 
Billy.     What  it  seems  to  me  He's  tryin' 
174 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
to  do  is  to  get  men  to  see  that  there  can't 
be  any  peace  or  happiness  in  this  world 
so  long  as  they  ain't  fair  to  one  another. 
You  can't  have  a  happy  world  unless 
you've  got  a  just  world,  and  slavery  ain't 
just.  It's  got  to  go.  I  don't  know 
when.  It's  always  seemed  to  me  a  pretty 
durable  struggle — did  back  in  '58,  but  I 
didn't  see  anything  so  bad  then  as  we've 
come  to.  Even  if  I'd  known  I  couldn't 
have  done  different,  Billy.  Even  if  we 
don't  win  this  war  and  the  Confederates 
set  up  a  country  with  slavery  in  it,  that 
ain't  going  to  end  it  for  me.  I'll  have  to 
go  on  fightin'  slavery.  I  know  God 
means  I  should. 

"  'It  takes  God  a  long  time  to  work  out 
His  will  with  men  like  us,  Billy,  bad  men, 
stupid  men,  selfish  men.  But  even  if 
we're  beat,  there's  a  gain.  There  are 
more  men  who  see  clear  now  how  hard  it 
is  for  people  to  rule  themselves,  more  peo- 
175 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
pie  determined  government  by  the  people 
shan't  perish  from  the  earth,  more  peo 
ple  willin'  to  admit  that  you  can't  have 
peace  when  you've  got  a  thing  like  slavery 
goin'  on.  That's  something,  that's  goin' 
to  help  when  the  next  struggle  comes. 

"  'You  mustn't  think  I'm  givin'  in, 
Billy.  I  ain't,  but  look  how  things  are 
goin'.  What  if  we  lose  the  election,  and 
you  must  admit  it  looks  now  as  if  we 
would,  what  if  we  lose  and  a  Copperhead 
Government  makes  peace — gives  the 
South  her  slaves — lets  the  "erring  sisters" 
set  up  for  themselves.  I've  got  to  think 
about  that,  Billy. 

"  'Seems  to  me  I  can't  bear  the  idea  all 
this  blood-lettin'  should  end  that  way,  for 
I  know  lasting  peace  ain't  in  that  set  of 
circumstances.  That  means  trouble, 
more  trouble,  mebbe  war  again  until  we 
obey  the  law*  of  God,  and  let  our  brother 
man  go  free.5 

176 


IN   LINCOLN'S    CHAIR 

"And  he  just  dropped  his  head  and 
groaned,  seemed  as  if  I  could  hear  him 
prayin',  'Oh,  my  Father,  if  it  be  possible, 
let  this  cup  pass  from  me !' 

"Think  he  prayed?  Think  Abraham 
Lincoln  prayed?"  Billy's  eyes  were 
stern,  and  his  voice  full  of  reproachful 
surprise. 

"I  know  he  did.  You  wouldn't  ask 
that  question  if  you  could  have  heard  him 
that  night  he  left  here  for  Washington 
sayin'  good-by  to  us  in  the  rain,  tellin'  us 
that  without  God's  help  he  could  not  suc 
ceed  in  what  he  was  goin'  into — that  with 
it,  he  could  not  fail;  tellin'  us  he  was  turn- 
in'  us  over  to  God,  and  askin'  us  to  re 
member  him  in  our  prayers.  Why,  a  man 
can't  talk  like  that  that  don't  pray,  least 
wise  an  honest  man  like  Abraham  Lin 
coln. 

"And  he  couldn't  have  stood  it  without 
God,  sufferin'  as  he  did,  abused  as  he  was, 
177 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
defeated  again  and  again,  and  yet  always 
hangin'  on,  always  believin'.  Don't  you 
see  from  what  I've  been  tellin'  you  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  all  through  the  war 
was  seekin'  to  work  with  God,  strugglin' 
to  find  out  His  purpose,  and  make  it  pre 
vail  on  earth.  A  man  can't  do  that  un 
less  he  gets  close  to  God,  talks  with  Him. 
"How  do  you  suppose  a  man — just  a 
common  man,  like  Abraham  Lincoln,  could 
ever  have  risen  up  to  say  anything  like 
he  did  in  '65  in  his  Inaugural  if  he  hadn't 
known  God: 

'With  malice  toward  none,  with  char 
ity  for  all;  with  firmness  in  the  right,  as 
God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive 
on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in;  to  bind 
up  the  nation's  wounds;  to  care  for  him 
who  shall  have  borne  the  battle  and  for 
his  widow  and  his  orphan — to  do  which 
may  achieve  a  just  and  lasting  peace 
among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations.' 
178 


IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 
"That  ain't  ordinary  human  nature — 
particularly  when  it's  fightin'  a  war — 
that's  God's  nature.  If  that  ain't  what 
Christ  had  in  mind,  then  I  don't  read  the 
Bible  right. 

"Yes,  sir,  he  prayed — that's  what  car 
ried  him  on — and  God  heard  him  and 
helped  him.  Fact  is  I  never  knew  a 
man  I  felt  so  sure  God  approved  of  as 
Abraham  Lincoln." 


179 


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